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440
pression imposed by a fewwhograbthe
benefits meant
for all.
Her story, indeed, is necessarily as complex as an amazingly twlstlng rlver which runs not only out of the llttle lost
cores in the Smokles but out of a mlxed history of Indians
and Scotchmen and Confederates and Republicans, runs into
all thepuzzhng questlonswhich grow wlth cotton onthe
stalk, runs past the angry drama of Scottsboro, the new bitterness of new sweatshops In Tupelo, on wlth the threat of flood
to Paducah, Calro, the Misslsslppi, and the sea.
And I think MISSWhitman has told the story of that river
not only wlth honesty but, which is rarer even in thls wicked
world, with that clarlty In her own mlnd whlch makes clarity
in the mlnd of the reader. Hundreds of men have been busy
for years making TVA confuslng. They have succeeded, 1
thlnk, in making It seem only the scene for a fight over power.
Publlc-utlllty executives and pubhc-power advocates have
both contrlbuted to this confusion. And undoubtedly the emphasis whlch they putupon electrlc power is the prlmary
emphasis in TVA. But flood control and national defense and
fertllizers and navigation and all the other lesser aspects of
the coordinated development of a river valley not only have
part In the plan of TVA butImportant results to showin
TVA.And advocate thoughshe IS, angrypartisanasshe
sometimes is when descrlblng such a man as Rex Reed, the
garment manufacturer who was happy to get TVA power but
who fought C. I. 0. wage and recognltiondemands
In
Tupelo, MISSWhitman has, I think, drawn the full picture
of the Tennessee Valley Authorityin clearer and more
understandableterms thanhas yet been done by anybody
else.
It is pure coincidence undoubtedly but an interesting one
that the two most satlsfactory books (to me) whlch have been
written about TVA for the layman, the taxpayer, the power
consumer, and the citizen have both been wrltten by women.
Perhaps these two ladieshave had the good sense not to
undertake such a technlcal and financial dlscussion of the
Authorlty as would confuse not only them but thelr readers
also. Butdespite MISS Whitmans ignoranceabout beaten
blscuits, I think that there may be some good housekeeping
quality still left in the entlrely emancipated feminine minds
of MISSWhitman and Odette Keun (A Foreigner Looks at
W A , Longmans). Each at least has caught and presented
with well-swept clarity the idea of an area intelligently developed for the use and happiness of man. No fine-spun
theorlesbindelther of them. Nelther of them is caught in
the maze of tradition. They look with clear feminine eyes at
a valley better for the people in it: and they are pleased. Like
the puddlng and theeating, the pleasure is the proof. Perhaps
TVA is more complicated than this, as certainly the lawyers
would insist. Indeed, there are bewlldering problems left for
engineer, farmer, politician, and planner, MISSWhitman has
not answered with any certainty all thebig questions the
citizen and the technician must face together. But she has, I
think, provided the best basis for the beginning of wisdom
about TVA. And she haswrittenit with vividness, understanding, good humor, and flashes of a fine feminine wit. A
woman who can see so clearly and write so well may even in
the South be forgiven a lapse over a lambasted biscuit.
JONATHAN DANIELS
Hungry Caravan
T H E GRAPES OF WRATH. By John Steinbeck. The Viking
Press. $2.75.
441
Betrayal in Europe
EUROPE ON T H E EVE. By Frederick L. Schuman. Alfred
A. Knopf. $3.50.
66
UROPE ON T H E EVEcanhardly
be too highly
E p r a l s e d . I t should be read by everybody who wishes
to know how the present deplorable sltuatlon In Europe has
come about. Professor Schuman shows by evldence the valldlty
of whlchcannot be contested, and for whlch he gives his
references in the copious notes at the end of the book, that
the big responslbillty for the present state of Europe rests
on the governments that have successively held office in England and France since 1933. The publlshers are indeed justified in describing the story as shocking. It is a record of
stupldlty, bad falth, fraud, and vlolatlon of treaty obhgatlons
such as mustbeunprecedented
in thehlstory of European
diplomacy.
There was only one break in the melancholy story-the
eightmonthsIn
1934 during which LOUISBarthou was
ForeignMinister of France.ProfessorSchuman
recognizes
the brilllant diplomacy of that interestlng man, who showed
in the last months of 111s llfe higher quallties than anybody
had prevlously believed hlm to possess. Barthous assasslnation atMarsellles on October 9, 1934, was a disaster to
Europe. It IS quite possible that the German and Italian governments,whlchwerebehlnd
the assassln, armed more at
Barthou than at King Alexander of Yugoslavla.
The few mistakes or omisslons In Europe on the Eve
do not detract from the great value of the book. Some are
qulte trivial. For example, Plerre Lava1 is not and never was
a devoutCatholic, and Pierre EtienneFlandinhas never
been a member of the Radlcal Party, as Professor Schuman
supposes. H e has always been a Conservatlve and a prominent member of the right center group to which Paul Reynaud also belonged.
Professor Schuman is, in my opinion,mistaken in saying
that the Pohsh flirtation with the Reich was in some measure
a consequence of the French fllrtatlon wlth Moscow, whlch
wasa very mild fllrtatlon untll Barthoutook office. The
estrangement of Poland from Francebegan with the FourPower Pact, to which the Poles were qulte rlght in objectmg,
for it was an attempt to substltute a dlrectorate of the four
great Western powers for the League of Natlons. It was also
almed agalnst Russia. What finally decided Pllsudski to slgn
the non-aggression agreement wlth Germany on January 26,
1934, was the discovery that Daladlerhad
been secretly
negotlatlngwithHltlerthroughFernandde
Brinon. Even
then Beck, on Pilsudskis instructions, told Paul-Boncour, the
French Foreign Mlnister, at Geneva that Poland would not
slgnthe pact if France wouldadopt a firm p o k y toward
Germany.
When ProfessorSchuman says that the U. S. S. R. was
certain of admisslon tothe League by the necessary twothlrds vote under Article I of the Covenant without Polands
vote, he forgets that the unanimous consent of the League
Council, of which Poland wasa member, was necessary to
glve Soviet Russla a permanent seat on the Council. When
he says that Leon Blum inducedthe FrenchCabinet
on
JuIy 25, 1936, to forbid all arms
shlpments to Spain, ProfessorSchuman IS confusingthe embargo,which was not
decided on untll August 8, withthe non-interventionproposal, which, if I amnot mistaken, was adopted by the
Cabinet onAugust 2, not July 25. The reason why Blum
agreed to the embargo was that the leading Radical ministers
threatened to reslgn if he did not, after the threats of the
Brltlsh ambassador to Paris, Slr George Clerk.
There is an obvlous slip in a date on page 110. The joint
Franco-Russiandeclaratlon
was issued at Genevaon December 5 , 1934, not 1935.
But these few errors, as I have said, do not detract from
the great value of Mr. Schumans book. O n the contrary it is