Show A nu nua 4 NEWS THIS WEEK by lemuel F parton EW YORK many a good news N NEW yarn has been spoiled by the e necessity of getting the story in the lead as they say in the newspaper shops this story that reporter asks in has kick fulgence dul gence for sav say arthe the kick in i rj ing the end at y one for the end noting merely that it is a happy ending in recent years there have been so many unhappy fade outs from sam langford to the league of nations that anything thin g in the line of an ed garrison finish rates a bit of suspense before the news payoff pay off in maxwell street chicago long before the fragrance of bubbly creek ebbed and sank and sadde saddened ed there was a bookstall book stall which was the jewish algonquin of those parts the place was overrun with philosophers some white bearded and highly venerated some young an and d contentious all stirred by a fever ish intellectual zeal they wolfed wilfed 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 Sweat sweatshop sho P workers used to throng in after a hard days 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 of times 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 enmeshed in the tangle of print language around him he used to tease his friend jane addams of nearby hull hall house by calling her settlement workers the paid neighbors of the poor he hd liked to deflate the utopians boiling things down to groshams Gre shams 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 Chi cagos ghetto bisno had a bright eyed clever little daughter named beatrice one of several chil the biskos dren ren 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 bisno was his wife she was going to write a book and did I 1 know of a quiet hideout hide out where she could write it I 1 sent them to the old hotel helvetia no 23 tournon in 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 publishers offices the smash of 1929 9 took the last of their savings today I 1 had a letter from francis oppenheimer we finally threw the book in an old clothes basket he said then acting on impulse we used our dinner money to give it one more ride weeks passed beatrice fell ill there came a letter from liveright the publisher I 1 knew it was another rejection and want to show it to beatrice but I 1 tore open the envelope and handed 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 too girl wins n morrows bread hig big prize by beatrice bisno with novel winning the 2500 prize award the judges being dorothy canfield fisher and fannie hurst that was the news that mr oppenheimer picked up irom from the floor when his wife was too in ill to read it dorothy canfield fisher says 0 of f the book A searchingly realistic portrait of an idealist what an idealist does to the world and what the world does to an idealist is here her set down with power and sincer iy ay ity winsome little bisno is gone one awishes wishes he be could be carrying the news down to the old maxwell street book stall if its still there 0 consolidated news features feature service |