THE publication of war photographs in the rotogravure sections of fifty-six newspapers our country over has been attended by some of the most absurd rumors that ever flew. The jingoists have heralded their appearance as a new form of preparedness (but who is our enemy?) and the pacifists see in them a lesson we should not forget. As a matter of fact, the feature was introduced by a Western syndicate who purchased from Simon and Schuster the second serial rights to the five-hundred-odd pictures in The First World War, a photographic history edited by Lawrence Stallings. The public expressed its appreciation of the pictures by increasing the circulation of every paper that printed them.
It will be years before we have enough war books. One of the happy effects of Anthony Adverse is to call attention to Hervey Allen’s earlier volume. Toward the Flame (Farrar and Rinehart. $2.50), the best account of the footslogger and trench fighter that has been written by any American, Best because, although it ‘was set down at white heat,’ as the author says, it possesses an accuracy of perception, a selection of detail, and a play of feeling which are the result of a cool and disciplined mind. And in the calmer moments we see the reflections of a poet who can he caustic. This hook is a tine etching of experience, not a line of which should I wish to cc changed.
What we ask of our war books to-day is not only vividness but perspicacity: we seek the vision of those who looked beyond the thundering horizon. I remember one such volume which was translated from the German and which stole unregarded into this country a few years ago. A Fatalist at War was its title, and Rudolf Binding, the author, was more a philosopher than a cavalry officer. From France this year comes another addition to this choice shelf. The Paris Front, by Michel Corday (Dutton, $5.00). This French searchlight is built on a diary: here are the swift staccato jottings of a middle-aged man employed in the Civil Service. Like’ Colonel Repington, he knew the bigwigs and the brass hats, and, like the military critic, he had I h‘ sharp penetrating mind that saw through the glitter, the political stratagems, and the blague to the unflinching truth beneath. The price of this book is inexcusably high. But its publishers originally brought out The Story of San Michele at $6.00, and perhaps here too they will relent.
It is a little curious that our noncommissioned veterans who were the greatest debunkers of the late war should suffer themselves to be so misled in peace. Soldiers What Next! is the title of Katherine Mayo’s new book (Houghton Mitflin, $3.50). It is also the challenge with which she confronts the American Legion. The attack in this volume is much more solid and hard-hitting than that in Mother India. True, when Miss Mayo speaks of the war, she speaks in sentimental accents. But when she speaks of the peace, when she presents the facts which she has garnered about the Legion’s activity since the Armistice, she hits straight from the shoulder. I should like some Legion lobbyist to defend for me the fact that, of the hospitalized and ‘disabled War Veterans’ for whose benefit, in 1932, $41,000,000 was expended, 79 percent were men whose ailment had no connection whatever with their one-time soldiering. The story of how France, England, Italy, and Germany have treated their own exveterans makes our lavish self-seeking the more outrageous. Great Britain, with four times as many combat troops in action as we had, paid her greatest sum of compensation directly after the war to those who most needed it. Her compensation programme will be wiped off the books by 1960. Two years earlier — by 1958 — if the present schedule is carried through unaltered, the United States Government will make its peak payment to the American veterans of 1917-1918 and their dependents. The comparison is not an honorable one.
