Pieces Of Hate; And Other Enthusiasms Part 12

Of course, the value of the weapons is not unknown to the conservatives as well. Many a rampant reformer has gone to Washington and has seen his ideals drown one by one before his eyes in the soup. For years England managed to muddle along with Ireland by inviting nationalists out to dinner. With the spread and development of civilization the price of pottage has gone up. To-day we can afford to laugh at poor ignorant and deluded Jacob who let his pottage go for a mess of birthright.

In the light of these admissions it would be impossible to contend that all the ills of the world could be solved by the device of international beer nights. Even well fed men are not perfect. Alcohol is benign, but it does not canonize. Schemes would go on even over demita.s.ses. There would be stratagems and surprises. And yet to our mind the stratagem, even of a statesman, can never be so potent for harm in the world as the stratagem of a general. Diplomacy is an evil game, chiefly because it has been so exclusive. Our little club would be large enough to admit all the delegates of the world. The only house rule would be "No checks cashed."

We have no idea that the heart of man is not more important than his stomach. The world will not be made over more closely to the heart's desire until we are of a better breed. But while we are waiting, friendly talks about a table may count for something. We might manage to swap a groaning world for a groaning board. There is sanction for hope in the words of the song. We know, don't we, that it's always fair weather when good fellows get together with a stein on the table. All America needs, then, to make the world safer for democracy is the stein and the good fellows.

x.x.xII

ART FOR ARGUMENT'S SAKE

All editors are divided into two parts. In one group are those who think that anybody who can make a good bomb can undoubtedly fashion a great sonnet. The members of the other cla.s.s believe that if a man loves his country he is necessarily well fitted to be a book reviewer.

As a matter of fact, new terminology is coming into the business of criticism. A few years ago the critic who was displeased with a book called it "sensational" or "sentimental" or something like that. To-day he would voice his disapproval by writing "Pro-German" or "Bolshevist."

Authors are no longer evaluated in terms of aesthetics, but rather from the point of view of political economy. Indeed, to-day we have hardly such a thing as good writers and bad writers. They have become instead either "sound" or "dangerous." A sound author is one with whose views you are in agreement.

So tightly are the lines drawn that the criticism of the leading members of each side can be accurately predicted in advance. Show me the cover of a war novel, and let me observe that it is called "The Great Folly,"

and I will guarantee to foreshadow with a high degree of accuracy just what the critic of The New York _Times_ will say about it and also the critic of _The Liberator_. Even if it happened to be called "The Glory of Shrapnel," the guessing would be just as easy.

The manner in which anybody says anything now whether in prose, verse, music or painting is entirely secondary in the minds of all critical publications. Reviewers look for motives. Symphonies are dismissed as seditious, and lyrics are closely scanned to see whether or not their rhythms are calculated to upset the established order without due recourse to the ballot. Nor has this particular reviewer any intention of suggesting that such activity is entirely vain and fanciful. He remembers that only a month ago he began a thrilling adventure story called "The Lost Peach Pit," only to discover, when he was half through, that it was a tract in favor of a higher import duty on potash.

A vivid novel about the war by John Dos Pa.s.sos has been issued under the t.i.tle "Three Soldiers." One of the chief characters was a creative musician who broke under the rigor of army discipline which was repugnant to him. n.o.body who wrote about the book undertook to discuss whether or not the author had painted a persuasive picture of the struggle in the soul of a credible man. Instead they argued as to just what proportion of men in the American army were discontented, and the final critical verdict is being withheld until statistics are available as to how many of them were musicians. Those who disliked the book did not speak of Mr. Dos Pa.s.sos as either a realist or a romanticist. They simply called him a traitor and let it go at that. The enthusiasts on the other side neglected to say anything about his style because they needed the s.p.a.ce to suggest that he ought to be the next candidate for president from the Socialist party.

Speaking as a native-born American (Brooklyn--1888) who once voted for a Socialist for membership in the Board of Aldermen, the writer must admit that he has found the radical solidarity of critical approval or dissent more trying than that of the conservatives. Again and again he has found, in _The Liberator_ and elsewhere, able young men, who ought to know better, praising novels for no reason on earth except that they were radical. If the novelist said that life in a middlewestern town was dreary and evil he was bound to be praised by the socialist reviewers.

On the other hand, any author who found in this same middle west a community or an individual not hopelessly stunted in mind and in morals, was immediately scourged as a viciously sentimental observer who had probably been one of the group which fixed upon the nomination of President Harding late at night behind the locked doors of a little room in a big hotel.

The enthusiasm of the radical critics extends not only to rebels against existing governmental principles and moral conventions, but to all those who dare to write in any new manner. There seems to be a certain confusion whereby free verse is held to be a movement in the direction of free speech.

Novels which begin in the middle and work first forward and then back, win favor as blows against the bourgeois idea that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. Of course, the radical author can do almost anything the conservative does and still retain the admiration of his fellows by dint of a very small amount of tact.

Rhapsodies on love will be d.a.m.ned as sentimental if the author has been injudicious enough to allow his characters to marry, but he can retain exactly the same language if he is careful to add a footnote that nothing is contemplated except the freest of free unions. A few works are praised by both sides because each finds a different interpretation for the same set of facts. Thus, the authors of "Dulcy" were surprised to find themselves warmly greeted in one of the Socialist dailies as young men who had struck a blow for government ownership of all essential industries merely because they had introduced a big business man into their play and, for the purposes of comic relief, had made him a fool.

Cla.s.s consciousness has become so acute that it extends even beyond the realms of literature and drama into the field of sports. The recent "battle of the century" eventually simmered down into the minds of many as a struggle between the forces of reaction and revolution. It was known before the fight that Carpentier would wear a flowered silk bathrobe into the ring, while Dempsey would be clad in an old red sweater. How could symbolism be more perfect? Anybody who believed that Carpentier's right would be good enough to win, was immediately set down as a profiteer in munitions who would undoubtedly welcome the outbreak of another war. Likewise it was unsafe to express the opinion that Dempsey's infighting might be too much for the Frenchman, lest one be identified with the little willful group of pacifists who impeded the progress of the war. Eventually, the startling revelation was made by the reporter of a morning newspaper that he had seen Carpentier smelling a rose. After that, any belief in the invader's prowess laid whoever expressed it open to the charge, not only of aristocracy, but of degeneracy as well. After Dempsey's blows wore down his opponent and defeated him, it was generally felt by his supporters that the eight-hour day was safe, and that the open shop would never be generally accepted in America.

The only encouraging feature in the increasingly sharp feeling of cla.s.s consciousness among critics is a growing frankness. Reviewers are willing to admit now that they think so and so's novel is an indifferent piece of work because he speaks ill of conscription and they believe in it. A year or so ago they would have pretended that they did not like it because the author split some infinitives.

One of the frankest writing men we ever met is the editor of a Socialist newspaper. "Whenever there's a big strike," he explained to me, "I always tell the man who goes out on the story, 'Never see a striker hit a scab. Always see the scab hit the striker.'"

"You see," he went on, "there are seven or eight other newspapers in town who will see it just the other way and I've got to keep the balance straight."

There used to be a practice somewhat similar to this among baseball umpires. Whenever the man behind the plate felt that he had called a bad ball a strike, he would bide his time until the next good one came over and that he would call a ball. The practice was known as "evening up" and it is no longer considered efficient workmanship. That is, not among umpires. The radical editor was not in the least abashed when I quoted to him the remark of a man who said that he always read his paper with great interest because he invariably found the editorial opinions in the news and the news on the editorial page. "That's just what I'm trying to do," he exclaimed delightedly. "I'm not trying to give the people the news. I'm trying to make new Socialists every day."

It is to be feared that even those writers who have the opportunity to be more deliberate than the journalists have been struck with the idea that by words they can shape the world a little closer to the heart's desire. Throughout the war we were told so constantly that battles could be decided and ships built and wars decided by the force of propaganda, that every man with a portable typewriter in his suitcase began to think of it as a baton. There was a day when a novelist was satisfied if he could capture a little slice of life and get it between the covers of his book. Now everybody writes to shake the world. The smell of propaganda is unmistakable.

With literature in its present state of mind critics cannot be expected to watch and wait for the great American novel or the great American play. Instead they look for the book which made the tariff possible, or the play which ended the steel strike.

x.x.xIII

NO 'RAHS FOR RAY

Richard Le Gallienne was lamenting, once, that he probably would never be able to write a best-seller like Hall Caine or Marie Corelli. "It's no use," he said. "You can't fake it. Bad writing is a gift."

So is college spirit. That is why almost all the plays and motion pictures about football games and hazing and such like are so fearfully unconvincing. n.o.body who is hired for money can possibly make the same joyful a.s.s of himself as a collegian under strictly amateur momentum.

Expense has not been spared, nor pains, in the building of "Two Minutes To Go," with the delightful Charlie Ray, but it just isn't real. Films may be faithful enough in depicting such trifling emotions as hate and pa.s.sion and mother-love, but the feeling which animates the freshman when Yale has the ball on the three-yard line is something a little too searing and sacred for the camera's eye.

One of the difficulties of catching any of this spirit for play or for picture is that there is no logical reason for its existence. Logic won't touch it. The director and his entire staff would all have to be inspired to be able to make a college picture actually glow. There is not that much inspiration in all Hollywood.

The partisanship of the big football games has always been to me one of the most mystifying features in American life. It is all the more mystifying from the fact that it grips me acutely twice a year when Harvard plays Princeton, and again when we play Yale. I find no difficulty in being neutral about Bates of Middlebury. It did not even worry me much when Georgia scored a touchdown. The encounters with Yale and Princeton are not games but ordeals. Of course, there is no sense to it. A victory for Harvard or a defeat makes no striking difference in the course of my life. My job goes on just the same and the servants will stay, and there will be a furnace and food even if the Crimson is defeated by many touchdowns.

I never played on a Harvard eleven, nor even had a relative on any of the teams. There was a second cousin on the scrub, but he was before my time, and it cannot be that all my interest has been drummed up by his career. I don't know the coaches nor the players. Yale and Princeton have not wronged me. In fact, I once sold an article to a Yale man who is now conducting a magazine in New York. Naturally it was on a neutral subject, which happened to be the question of whether mothers were any more skillful than fathers in handling children. Orange and black are beautiful colors and "Old Na.s.sau" is a stirring tune. Woodrow Wilson meant well at Paris, and Big Bill Edwards was as pleasant-spoken a collector of income taxes as I ever expect to meet.

Yet all this is forgotten when the teams run out on to the gridiron. I find myself yelling "Block that kick! Block that kick! Block that kick!"

or "Touchdown! Touchdown!" as if my heart would break. It is pretty lucky that the old devil who bought Faust's soul has never come along and tempted me in the middle of a football game. He could drive a good bargain cheap. There have been times when for nothing more than a five yard gain through the center of the line he could have had not only my soul, but a third mortgage on the house. If he played me right he might even get that recipe for making near beer closer.

The strangest part of all this is that the emotions described are not exceptional. A number of sane persons have a.s.sured me that they feel just the same about the big games. One of my best friends in college was always known to us as "the brother of the man who dropped the punt." The man who actually committed that dire deed was not even mentioned. I remember, also, a Harvard captain whose team lost and who horrified the entire university by remarking at the team dinner a few weeks later that he was always going to look back on the season with pleasure because he thought that he and the rest of the players had had good fun, even though they had lost to Yale. Naturally he was never allowed to return to Cambridge after his graduation. His unfortunate remark came a few years before the pa.s.sage of the sedition law, but there was a militant public opinion in the college fully capable of taking care of such cases.

Feeling, then, as I do, that there is no such poignant ordeal possible to man as sitting through a tight Harvard-Yale game, any screen story of football seems not only piffling but sacrilegious. In the Charlie Ray picture, the two contending teams were Stanley and Baker. There were views of the rival cheering sections and closer ones of Charlie Ray running the length of the gridiron for a touchdown. This feat was made somewhat easy for him by the fact that all the extra people engaged for the picture seemed to have been instructed to slap him lightly above the knee with the little finger of the right hand and then fall upon their faces so that he might step over them.

It was not this palpable artificiality which was the most potent factor in bringing me into an extreme state of calm. A long Harvard run made possible by the entire Yale team's being struck by lightning would seem to me thoroughly satisfactory. The trouble with "Two Minutes To Go" was that I never forgot for a moment that Charlie Ray was a motion picture star instead of a halfback. Of course, you might object that I should properly have the same feeling when seeing Ray in pictures where he is engaged in altercations with holdup men and other scoundrels. That is different. In such situations the stratagems of the films are amply convincing, but in football n.o.body can possibly play the villain so effectively as a Yaleman. We have often wondered how one university could possibly corner the entire supply of treacherous and beetle-browed humanity.

The foemen lined up against Charlie Ray didn't begin to be fierce enough. Nor did the rival groups of rooters serve any better to convince me of their authenticity. It was quite evident that they were swayed by no emotion other than that of a willingness to obey the orders of the director. Football is too warm and pa.s.sionate a thing to be reduced to the flat dimensions of the screen. Battle, murder, sudden death and many other things are done amply well in films. Football is different. Though it injure the heart, increase the blood pressure and shorten life, only the reality will do.

x.x.xIV

"ATABOY!"

Thomas Burke has a cultivated taste for low life and he records his delight in Limehouse so vividly that it is impossible to doubt his sincerity. In his volume of essays called "Out and About London," he spreads his enthusiasm over the entire "seven hundred square miles of London, in which adventure is shyly lurking for those who will seek her out."

In the spreading there is at least ground for suspicion that here and there authentic enthusiasm has worn a bit thin. It is no more than a suspicion, for Burke is a skillful writer who can set an emotion to galloping without showing the whip. Only when he comes to describe a baseball game is the American reader prepared to a.s.sert roundly that Burke is merely parading an enthusiasm which he does not feel. We could not escape the impression that the English author felt that a baseball game was the most primitive thing America had to offer and that he was in duty bound to enthuse over this exhibition of human nature in the raw.

We have seen many Englishmen at baseball games. We have even attempted to explain to a few visitors the fine points of the game, why John McGraw spoke in so menacing a manner to the umpire or why Hughie Jennings ate gra.s.s and shouted "Ee-Yah!" at the batter. Invariably the Englishman has said that it was all very strange and all very delightful. Never have we believed him. The very essence of nationality lies in the fact that the other fellow's pastime invariably seems a ridiculous affair. One may accept the cookery, the politics and the religion of a foreign nation years before he will take an alien game to his heart. We doubt whether it would be possible to teach an American to say "Well played" in less than a couple of generations.

Burke has no fears. Not only does he describe the game in a general way, but he plunges boldly ahead in an effort to record American slang. The t.i.tle of the essay is well enough. Burke calls it "Atta-boy!" This is, of course, authentic American slang. It meets all the requirements, being in common use, having a definite meaning and affording a short cut to the expression of this meaning. We can not quite accept the spelling.

There is, perhaps, room for controversy here. When the American army first came to France the word attracted a good deal of attention and some French philologists undertook to follow it to the source. One of them quickly discovered that he was dealing not with a word but a contracted phrase. We are of the opinion that thereafter he went astray, for he declared that "Ataboy" was a contraction of "At her boy," and he offered the freely translated subst.i.tute "Au travail garcon."

It will be observed that Mr. Burke has given his attaboy a "t" too many.

"That's the boy" is the source of the word. Perhaps it would be more accurately spelled if written "'at 'a boy." The single "a" is a neutral vowel which has come to take the place of the missing "the." The same process has occurred in the popular phrases "'ataswingin'" and "'ataworkin'." These, however, have a lesser standing. "Ataboy" is almost official. One of the American army trains which ran regularly from Paris to Chaumont began as the Atterbury special, being named after the general in charge of railroads. In a week it had become the Ataboy special, and so it remained even in official orders.

Some of the slang which Burke records as being observed at the game is palpably inaccurate. Thus he reports hearing a rooter shout, "Take orf that pitcher!" It is safe to a.s.sume that what the rooter actually said was, "Ta-ake 'im out!"