OCR Text |
Show THE CITIZEN in the midst of his woes.. But we answer our own plaint. We probably shall join the League of Nations and we shall continue to give, give, give. 5 the inefficiency of our regular army officers in France and it is assumed, rightly or not, that these officers were the West Point graduates.- The ardent praise which Admiral Sims has accorded the Yale men who were under his command will help to illuminate the controversy. WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 0 He relates that when the British naval authorities asked the AmeriIt was the realism of William Dean Howells that first gave us a cans to detail their best men for some particular difficult task he and subtle impression of American life and character. Hawthorne and his aides would invariably say : Let us detail Yale men ; they always Presumably the same was to be said of Harvard men Poe, more universal in their genius, had attempted no synthesis of make good. American life. The Scarlet Letter, with a change of scene, might and of the men of our other leading universities. For example there have been the work of a Russian. .With few exceptions Poe's stories was Herbert Hoover, a Standford man. At all events President Eliots criticism will place the West Point might have been written by a Frenchman. About the art of both Hawthorne and Poe there was a richness and somberness of coloring officers on the defensive. West Point will be on trial. That it was that was not typical of America or Americans. They remained true the West Pointers who forged to the front in the civil war and held to the aristocratic traditions of the pen while literature was being the high commands will not escape attention, but it will be emphasized that the test today is different and that West Point must democratized by Dickens in England and Balzac in France. its adaptability to the new order of affairs. More than ever Americans were delighted to find in Howells such a sentient and war is a business calling for business qualifications. sapient interpreter. There was an aroma about his novels which, so The gist of Dr. Eliots indictment is that the West Pointers emto say, gave one the nostalgia of Americanism. It was no part of his art to idealize his countrymen or. to speak in extenuation of their ployed antequated methods during the war, that they were hopelessly faults. It was sufficient for him that he was able to express the life entangled in red tape and that they acquired the habit of passing the buck, which, we take it, means that they sought to excuse their failabout him. He consciously avoided vulgar types as not worth interures by blaming them on officers out of civil life. preting, but in so doing he missed something of the life he sought It was the fashion among the regular army officers to sneer at to visualize and consequently we find in him none of those sublime the officers of the National Guard. They told with zest of laughable heights and depths we demand of the great genius. He was too blunders committed by the militia officers during the troubles on placid, too much a devotee of the doctrine of art for arts sake, too bleak in his sympathies, too sterile in imagination, too lacking the Mexican border. This created bad blood and led to an exchange of ascerbities which continued throughout the great war. The civilin humor to take rank among the Olympians of art. It is odd to recall that the author of Tom Sawyer and Huckle- ians was not able to judge between the duelists. Now the words of Dr. Eliot will be cited to show that the regular officers were engaged berry Finn envied the author of Silas Lapham and A Hazard of but not very honorable, game of passing the New Fortune. So persistently did the critics indulge in extravagant in that adulation of the Howells cult that a great genius imagined himself buck. Instances not a few of regular army officers removed on the eve little beside one of hardly more than average literary stature. or during battle, are brought to us by returning soldiers. They It seemed as if Howells had read everything worth reading in of, were replaced by men whose military education had been obtained in ancient and modern literature. He was no mean critic and he early the National Guard or in the civilian training camps. It is also narintroduced to us the merits of foreign authors not yet translated rated that when the officers and men sought their pay in France at into our language. He was by no means unerring in his judgments the time the forces were being demobilized for home, it required and often was misled by his likes and dislikes, but no literary man three days for an individual to get his pay from regular army officers of his day was so quick to recognize and encourage genius. It was he bound round with red tape and, perhaps, not more than ten minutes who saw instantly the commanding genius of Stephen Crane, author to get it from officers who had gone into the army from business of The Red Badge of Courage and of Frank Norris, author of The life. dein-onstra- te soul-satisfyin- Pit. Long before Socialism had gained a sympathetic hearing in the United States he became fascinated by its doctrines and possibilities, fashion that would have but he treated of it in a high-bremade the whiskers of a true Leninite curl with indignation. He looked at it through the eyes of nice people chatting trancendcntally with A Traveler From Altruria. Howells was a master rather of diction than of style. Clearness, grace, precision and purity of phrasing were, with him, ends in themselves. Consequently he possessed a true classic, diction without possessing a great style. I lis chief merit, and the one that will carry his name far into the future, was the detailed truth of his portrayals of American men and women and of types of the men and women who had come from foreign shores to make this country their home. Dying at an advanced age, he had done all that was humanly possibly in an industrious career to carve his name big on the enduring tablets of American literature. And because in an age of pygmies, he had few equals his departure seemed like the passing of some ancient and revered d, kid-glo- ve . institution. STORMING WEST POINT Condemnation of West Point by Charles W. Eliot, president emeritus of Harvard, is certain to focus upon the military academy Even before he gave voice to a widely a hurricane of criticism. prevalent opinion there were straws to indicate which way the winds of censure were blowing. Few of us but have heard sad stories about g, Not long ago Field Marshal Petain of the French army declared West Point methods obsolete. A little later Field Marshal Haig of the British army pronounced West Point one of the worlds greatest educational institutions. Manifestly, West Point is becoming an issue. Soon we shall have one of those congressional investigations which slowly lead to reforms. If the military academy is forced to sec the new light and guide itself accordingly, it will not be the first time that it has reformed. One of the most notable reforms was the abolition of hazing, which had taken on a special! virulent aspect at West Point. When the country saw that the students were being moulded into it demanded brutes by hazing that would have disgraced cave-meand obtained the cessation of the barbarous practices. n, JOIN AMERICAN LEGION Monday. May 17. to Saturday. May 22. ineluive will be American Legion week in Utah. A drive will be conducted to recruit the membership of an organization that i representative of the best there is in American life and ideals. It is said that in Massachusetts ninety per cent of the belong to the American Legion, whereas not more than thirty per cent belong in Utah. In Salt Lake City the percentage is even lower, for here the legion has a membership of .only 1.500 whereas, if all men in the city were members, the total would be the more than 7,500. The legion has already arranged to enroll new 'members at Red Next week ex-soldi- ex-servi- ce ers |