Below the Potomac

THIS is an admirable piece of regional reporting, equally free from sentimentality and sensationalism. Mr. Dabney, who is one of the South’s leading editors and most public-spirited citizens, conveys a very positive picture of the life of the states south of the Potomac. He laughs out of court the opposite misconceptions of the South as a region inhabited by Cavalier gentlemen and languorous belles or as a part of the Union given over to hillbillies. The former Confederate states are poorer and more agricultural in character than most of the other states; there is a smaller admixture of European immigrant stocks; and there is the problem of racial and social adjustment. Mr. Dabney’s discussion of the difficult plight of the Negro (he recognizes that, while lynching has decreased, economic opportunities for the Negroes are in some respects more constricted than was the case a generation ago) is characterized by a strong sense of justice and humanity, tempered by common sense and knowledge of Southern psychology. While the author is far from being a professional Southerner, his book is lit up by some of the best qualities that one would associate with an agrarian civilization: mellowness, urbanity, tolerance, and a quiet, insistent sense of humor.

W. H. C.