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About Capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1919-1980 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 21, 1936)
You Can't Take ' '''' ''' ' ' ' ' 7fe jFrx IT seems as though the Indians Met our Grandpa's at the dock The day they landed on that bleak But very famous rock And we suspect, although of course, We never have been told That Indian friends kept them from want And hunger and from cold And showed them where they might plant corn As well as where to build In order that when winter came They might be warm and filled. This brings us to Thanksgiving day And to this little story About an Indian boy and White Who ought to have some glory. E(CCiS IF "Green Margini" by E. P. O'Donnell (Houghton Mifflin). LIKE many novels that hava won price contesta E. P. O'Donnell'a "Green Margine," which took the Houghton Mifflin Fellowship Prize, ia over-written. Mr. O'Donnell treats hia reader to (Teat reams of poetry, no that one haa, after reading hia book, the same sensation that results from over-indulgence in French pastry and choc olate bare. Of course, Mr. O'Donnell la entitled to some of Illustration from book jacket his poetic binges, for the country of which he writes la a Strang lusty one, one fairly new to the literary world. He couldn't be too re strained In writing of an unreatrained, lush country. The scene la that part of the country where the Mlasissippl meeta the sea, It ia a land of fiddler crabs, aluggiah waters, swollen watere, hurricanes, roaring alligators, orange groves, Irieh laborers, levee workers, soldiers, Slavon ians, Frenchmen, Negroes. Mr. O'Donnell haa not been afraid to splash exotic colours on a mighty canvas, but I am afraid the canvaa waa too mighty for him. The character are blurred . and unreal, in moat eases, like figures In a dream. They are people aeen in the dark. The outlinea are aeen but the features indistinct The central character In the story ia Sister Kalavlch. hard and lovely, whose atory, for all Mr, O'Donnell'a efforts might well have remained unwritten. Moving in as grand acene, ahe, with all her problems, aeema amall and unneces sary, trivial. Sister, living with her father Tony, a tubercular drunkard, and her brother Mocco, a laiy futile person, meeta Bruce and becomes pregnant by him. Her father casta her out and ahe geea to live at Gram paw's camp. Grampaw ia the moat annoying character in the A6t TWO li Thanksgiving By R. Remlow Harris THEIR fathers, so it seems, were scalped Or sick or out of luck ' And so the boys went out to hunt With true and manly pluck They would not let their households starve--Not them we mean, not they Besides all that, tomorrow Was to be Thanks Giving Day. So little Narry Gann Sett took , His papa's trusty bow " And Daniel had his father's gun. What Turkey had a show? TUil IE MOMENT book. A delta Polonlus, full of philosophy and advice calculated to make those about him die contented with their lot. Grampaw believes in individualism. Living with Grampaw, ahe meets Loretta from New Orleana, a city woman who makes Sister, for a time, yearn for town life. Sister's baby fa bom, Grampaw diea of a heart attack, and the story continues with Sister's triala and tribulations. She meeta Rene, an artist, is his friend for a long time, Tony diea, Moeco goea to New Orleana, Mitch Holt, with of "Green Margins." whom Slater haa been in love all her life, geta out of Jail, and they marry, having many chil dren. THE most clearly drawn character in the book ia Mocco, Ha ia the nearest approach to underatandability and reality. A poor, discon tented person, is Mocco, elwaya going to go to New Orleana and cane hia niche in the world. After making atatementa to the effect that he ia leaving Grass Margina year after year, he ia finally put on a barge drunk and carried to New Orleana. He geta a Job there, marries, and la fired for dishonesty. Returning to Grass Mar gina, he ainka back to hia usual lasy life, beaten because he only had wiahea, and no strength with which to carry them out. Rene, the artist, ia too obvious from the start. He ia a dreamer, an artistic soul who prefers equator to comfort, for the aaka of art. He falls in love with Sister, starts painting pictures instead of abstractions, falls out of love, and finds contentment with a mulatto until hia mur der hy a Jealoua Negro rival, Mitch Holt, who marries Sister, haa been a smuggler. He spends several years In the peni tentiary, cornea out determined to lead hia peo ple, and as far as I can gather, changea hia mind. So Why Turkey THERE it was. The big bird fell As Daniel's weapon blazed But Narry Gann Sett saw that it Was only slightly dazed. So from his father's trusty bow He sped a deadly arrow Which killed the gobbler much more dead Than any frozen sparrow. So proudly homeward both our hunters With their turkey marched Their heads were high, as though They had been ry stiffly starched. But being manly little boys They did not brag nor boast Although of course, their deed did give More flavor to their roast. By Jane Archer Laid in so fabuloua a acene, perhapa It is a mistake to portray clear cut character. Some of Mr. O'Donnell'a prose ia beautiful, but hia book ia cluttered with passages of this sort: "Sister waa unwell. She waa happy and sad. She felt like fleeing down the road with loosened hair, or finding a place to lie on the earth to weep, or plunging her handa among the stars." And "Sister waa highly excited now, eager to plunge into the living of a new life. She waa tired of the aea. Her growth, aomehow, had stopped. She wanted to feel dry land under her. She waa hungry for the earth. She longed to plunge her handa Into the soft rich land." AND Rene: "'A tree ia a creature of con trary rhythms like a man, vertical flow of aap and the planetary movement of fruit around the swollen boughs. That observation would have made a stir among my old gang. ... Is she thinking of me tonight t She shall think of me! My will must never waver! That night in the lighthouse she waa very near to submitting. Next time he' head rests on my shoulder it will remain . . . Lovely mouth, the trumpet of her soul! Ripe lips, drooping like fruit, heavy with songa unsung! In this place she ia wlsr than I, saddened by the secrets of the soil . . This In escapable network of stars! Blurred stars, blur red hedges, blurred footfalls. I am a footstep in the mist! My thoughts grope softly as quick roots fumble for the sweet secretions of the night , , . Saddened by the secrets of the soil! I must tell her that! No It ia too full of hiase " Too much ia too much, and 499 pagea cram med with this sort of thing ia what I call too much. It'a too bad too, for Mr. O'Donnell haa a definite feeling for lovely words and lovely sounds. He haa created an atmosphere that ia truly exciting. After completing hia manuscript Mr. O'Donnell should have laid it aside for several yeara to let it get cold. He might then have aeen that he could cut about half of it out and have had a better book. He drugged himself with hia own poetry. Mr. O'Donnell won the Fellowship Award. H presumably la a man of soma education. He knows words and he knowa the English langu age. Ha strung 499 pages of words together and got them published. Ha even won prise contest on them. How then ha he th temerity to do this? "She bosomed her letter." "She ovened them with a last lingering touch." Despite that fact Mr. O'Donnell haa written a fairish book. A book that ia too extravagant A greedy book, it ia true, but a book that la. In a few spots, well written. We can over-look many of th author faalta. n I l D m nea Ml We Can't Stand Do We Think We Nobody Can Find DONT BE AN EGO-MANIAC! Don't get the idea that some one is crazy over you when perhaps they have been feeling aorry for you and trying to be nice about it! DONT GET THE IDEA, EITHER, THAT YOUR PROBLEMS AND DIFFICULTIES ARE GREATER THAN ANYONE ELSE'S FOR THEY PROBABLY ARE NOT HALF SO BAD AS YOUR NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR'S. It'a odd how we use a magnifying glass when we look at ourselves and our problems and half shut our natural eyea when we look at other. Enlarging our own virtues and minimizing our friende' la a good old pastime. There Is a modern expression which says "You Just can't take it," and ita popularity Is due to the fact .that so many of us can't take It! We can't atand criticism, we won't be big enough to admit that there ia a flaw in our make-up. Why, In heaven'a name, do we think we are so (rH th-t no one has any right to find fault with us? If you really want to find a friend (and a friend is ten times more valuable than some one In love with you there are few real friends) just take someone who has criticized you with intelligence, alt down and see if they are right about you, admit the fault and set to work cor recting it. Get on to yourself! ABRAHAM LINCOLN SAID: "I DON'T THINK MUCH OF A MAN WHO IS NOT WISER TODAY THAN HE WAS YESTERDAY." If there isn't any room for improvement how eould life be worth living? A part of the Joy of facing each fresh morning is the conscious ness of power to achieve. Who said, writing of a prospector, "It isn't gold that I'm wanting so much as Just hunting the gold." All of life is pursuit of something and It wouldn't be worth curing if it wasn't! So when you feel important take down a list of things you do wrong and atart correcting them. It'a grand for what ails you and is guaranteed to keep you sweet and unassuming and modest in short, real person! WITH THE EXCEPTION OF BREATHING ANT EATING. PRAYER IS PROBABLY THE MOST UNIVERSAL ACTIVITY KNOWN TO MAN! . There are peaceful natives who dwell In ob aeure mountain passes of practically unexplored region of the earth who do not care greatly for fighting, but they pray. There are warlik tribes that dwell in other regions that also pray. The Mohammedans bow their heads reverent ly at sunset in sublime aubmission to Allah; the Orientals make obeisance to strange golden idola and the Christian nations kneel in holy worship to their God. Different in clothes, different in customs, different in moral standards and edu cation, yet they all have the divine urge to plead for guidance. No stronger argument eould be found to uphold the fact that there is a God, a creator who lends ear to the supplications of mortals. PRAYER IS FAITH; and faith la a sixth sense given to man aa surely aa he haa been given the other five. It wields a greater influ ence than any other one thing in the world, and yet it ia within reach of the lowest individual. Newspaper reader of 20 years ago will re member the fire which threatened to wipe At lanta, Georgia, from the map. The fire ran with uncontrolled fore from housetop to house top; block after block waa ravished. The shack of an old Negro mammy waa directly in the path of the conflagration. Firemen breathless ly urged her to move from her home but the old white headed woman hadn't gone to her hallelujah meetings in vain. Her faith in "God Almighty" waa not shaken by the fury of th Seasca pes AT SEA: broken from the orbit of my daily dozen, I'm north-bound on the good ahip "Cricket." Wing-weary land-birds shelter them aelvea from sea-gulls. Their refuge Is beneath life-boats. If they live until we reach Columbia River well and good. They look tired and cold. Food and water may aave them. If some of us should fly into space, and auddenly find our selves on Mara, I imagine our bewilderment might not be unlike that of these poor wind driven birds. Gone ia their song of the forest Gone are their native haunts perhaps aa the smoke-filled fog tells a gruesome story. Forest fires along the coast of Oregon are bringing damage to treea that grew before the white man came. A naaty fog haa closed in upon us. Its sticky fingers penetrate to the bone. With monotonous regularity the ship's vibrant siren wama every Mother's Son of our presence. A steady throb indicatea that all ia well below. The ahip'a engines, turn with th same dependable regularity as the pendulum of Grandfather's clock. I shudder at the thought of what a forest 'fir may do. The sight of grotesque figures of men, drawn by heat, th muscle of their backa and necks pull their heads up, while they lay upon their bellies; seared lips leave grinning teeth. Empty eye-sockets; neither ears nor nose re mained. Drawn fingers, burned short. A HY should these thinga be? To change YV th subject I shall tell you of this ahip'a officer. Each one, representative of those who built th West I might hav said, thoae who used up th West beyond which there is no more. After that, it'a East again! Th arly whit settler, cam by ship and wagon. Later, by train. Today we flyl . Far away Latvia gave this Coast Captain John Wehman, Master of the "Cricket" then nineteen years. He first landed at San Fran cisco in November, 1887. Today, hia birth-place may well b proud of th lad who wandered far to make a home. He helped build th West! Norway gave us Tonnes Berensen. He ia th healthy looking Chief Mate, who left a Danish ded? Criticism! Why Are So Big That Fault With Us? flames until Mammy's shack was completely surrounded. There was no way to save her. .11 I it J I ueorgians ten us mat wnen me names aiea down the old darkey was sitting safe and sound singing spirituals thanking God. Ita worth thinking about her aupreme faith! THE ancient Spartan mothers who sent their sons forth to battle with the admonition to BRING HOME THEIR SHIELDS AS VICTORS OR BE BROUGHT HOME ON THEM in other words FIGHT FOR VICTORY UNTIL DEATH were not so unmerciful as they may seem to many moderns. It was the old rule of the survival of the fit. teat, which is a pretty good rule, by and large. THE YOUTH WHO GROWS UP UNDER SUCH TUTORING WILL NEVER FLINCH BEFORE THE DEMANDS OF CARVING A CAREER. The reporter who is sent out to get "facts" if he la a good reporter, will either go until he geta them or is certain that they do not exist in a form which can be published. The trapper in the northern wooda knowa that HE MUST EITHER GET HIS ANIMALS OR FACE STARVATION. It ia the failures, the driftwood of humanity and the unsuccessful mass who utter the dia tribe against this rule of the ancient shield. No really successful man or woman has ever ac cepted a half way compromise with life. Com promises were not made for them. To them if it is worth doing at all it ia worth doing well. The one who fights to the bitter end, if a fail ure, at leaat learns a lesson which will make the next fight worth while. Mistakes are the step ping stones to progress. EVERY MISTAKE WE MAKE IS A SOLID ROCK BENEATH OUR FEET WHICH LIFTS US HIGHER UP THE LADDER. If we make enough of them we are likely to reach the top. The wrong things we do serve as guiding posts. NOT EVEN MISTAKES SHOULD DIS COURAGE US NOR KEEP US FROM FIGHT ING TO THE END. MAYBE Stelnach waa wrong. Who knowa? This would be Gertrude Atherton to the contrary. Rejuvenation ia something more than glands, and even if it were not most doctors (including the great Stelnach, we are told) declare that the effect of reactivation operationa ia tempo rary. It ia aaid that the Stelnach operation is somewhat more lasting than other "because it stimulates the creation of hormones within the body itself. However, its effect rarely lasts more than a few yeara at the most." It would occur to me, after roaming over a goodly portion of the world and talking to a good many medical men, philosophers, and morons, that to atay young requires something more than Just the physical mechanism. If you , can't change the mind of a man or a woman by changing the glands, pray tell me what good it will do to change the glands, since the mind will, after a few yeara, produce th same face aa It produced before. Plastic surgeons, alao devoted to restoring youth, claim that their operationa are likewise only temporary. Doesn't it sound reasonable that the individual with a nasty disposition is going to succeed in ruining th most perfect face a surgeon can build up by repeated pulling of th muscles in order to growl at th world? Jealousy, fits of temper, unhappy and discon tented thoughts distill and discharge poisons in the system tearing down th work of nature and surgeons. So in the final analysis wa say Maybe Steinach la wrong after all I Jean Rendlen "The Cricket" By Capfain C E. Barry Whaler to Join the Big Parade westward. Ex cept when he tried what all sailors dream about a chicken ranch American ahipa have known him since 1900. This ship haa felt th heavy tread of hia feet for eight years. "When Sweden got too many "Sons" a law was passed to compel all Government employees to change their names. That's why a Pilot in South Sweden named Jepson changed hia nam to Malmgren. Hia aon, William F. H. Malmgren, firat arrived at San Francisco in 1901, and la Second Mate here. Comea now the Third Mate, Leonard Olsen, who was born at SUvanger, Nor way, 1898. Still a young man, but, he haa apent much time under the American flag. Few men can boast of a western heritage comparable to our Chief Engineer Thomaa Herman Dittman. Hia father, Carl Dittman left Stettin, Germany, and made hia way to America, On board a Yankee Trader, young Dittman arrived at Monterey, California, 1842. He married Mar garet Whitfield, who waa bora at Half-Moon Bay. California. Thla union brought forth ight children. Four atill survive. Carl Dittman, left Germany in a British ship. Ha took th nama of Charlea Brown. Thla name, ha used while with Fremont s Army, mining, and catching the wilv aea-otter with Captain Nidiver. Both of thene gentlemen made Santa Barbara, California, their horn. Upper New York etatOoet Albrt and Ger trude Wright in 1905. That's when they took their aon Paul, and moved "Out West" The parent live in Hillsdale, Oregon. Paul, la Firat Assistant Engineer on th "Cricket" There's a stump Ranch in Washington that belongs to Charlea George Colea, our second Assistant Engineer. In the day of sun-bonnets, and light ning-rods, he left th Sunflower state of Kan aaa with hia parenta, to settle at Roach Har ?2 2,,u,n I,1,nd' WMWiigton, That waa in 1890. Charlie, looks forward to the time, wher ne can sit on these stumps and ponder. Truly these men belong to th West In the year to come, when generations yet unborn scan the pagea of history that depict the West, I hope their names will not have been forgotten. May th Lord see fit to eliminate fogs by then I 11
