Show 1 NEWS THIS WEEK oy by lemuel F parlon parton L N EW YORK many a good news yarn has been spoiled by the necessity of I 1 getting the story in the lead as they say in the news paper P shops this story 0 that rac reporter asks in has kick fulgence dul gence for sav at rf the end ing the kick in this one for the end noting merely that it is a happy ending in recent years there there have been so many unhappy fade outs from sam langford to the he league of nations that anything in the line of an unexpected garrison finish rates a bit ot of suspense before the news pay off in maxwell street chicago long before the fragrance of bubbly creek ebbed and sank and saddened there was a bookstall book stall which was the jewish algonquin of those parts athe place was overrun with philosophers some white bearded and highly venerated some young and contentious all stirred by a feverish intellectual zeal they wolfed new books and started clamorous arguments about them the way the crowds at the big pool hall down the street grabbed the box scores in the late sporting extras sweatshop workers used to throng in after a hard day s work and get in on the seminar wrinkled merry mischievous little abraham bisno from russia was the erasmus of the sweatshop philosophers he used to circulate a lot around this and other maxwell street book shops and many erasmus i rasmus of times imes the state of sweatshops illinois was saved makes peace the expense of calling out the militia because bisno happened along to referee an argument he was a sweatshop worker a man of amazing erudition but of salty colloquial speech never en meshed in the tangle of print language around him he used to tease his friend jane addams of nearby hull house by calling her settle ment workers the paid neighbors of the poor he liked to deflate the utopians boiling things down to gresham s law of money the law of diminishing returns weighted averages or something like that he was the first of a multitude of sweatshop economists who spread light and learning through chicago s ghetto bisno had a bright eyed clever little daughter named beatrice one of several chil the biskos dren old sages pass beyond up and down max our ken well street used to say the world would hear from beatrice some day but the world went to war regardless of sir norman angell and all the other philosophers and the biskos passed beyond the ken of this writer about twelve years ago I 1 had a visit from francis oppenheimer a new york journalist beatrice bis no was his wife she was going to write a book and did I 1 know of a quiet hide out where she could write if I 1 sent them to the old hotel hel vetia no 23 rue de tournon in pans paris she sat in the nearby lux em bourgh garden and wrote her book they came home and the book made endless round trips to pub lishers offices the smash of 1929 took the last of their savings today I 1 had a letter from francis oppen heimer we finally threw the book in an old clothes basket he said then acting on impulse we used our dm din tier iner money to give it one more ride weeks passed beatrice fell ill there came a letter from live right the publisher I 1 knew it was another rejection and didn dian t want to show it to beatrice but I 1 tore open the envelope and hand ed it to her her eyes were glazed she could not read the letter it slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor and in the same mail today there came to this desk a copy of the new book to girl wins morrow s bread big prize by beatrice bisno with novel winning the 2500 2 prize award the judges being dorothy canfield tisher and fannie hurst that was the news that mr oppenheimer picked up from the floor when his wife was too ill to read it dorothy canfield fisher says of the book I 1 A searchingly realistic portrait of an idealist what an idealist does to the world and what the world does to an idealist is here set down with and sincer ity winsome little bisno is gone one wishes he could be carrying the news down to the old maxwell street book stall if it s still there 0 consolidated news feature features service |