Daily News from Los Angeles, California • 11

Coivboy.j Arthur Koestler examines John Bulls Other Ireland By WARD MOORE PROMISE AND FULFILMENT. after the last Jew in Bar Kochbas army was crucified. It is a small country and not worth much in dollars and cents, but the Jewl value it above all others because it is theirs, deeded to them directly by God in return for a consideration: that they should be His people. It is Impossible to understand (Continued on page It, Col. t) fi WILL ROGERS any reason why he shouldnt always have plenty of money.

Thats enough sampling. The truth is, that any page of the book would yield remarks as pithy, real and satisfying. And every page proves that, if- Will Rogers had lived until next November 5th, he would have been seventy years young. By Arthur Koestler. Macmillan: $4.

Arthur Koestler is the main who has given us unique insight into the minds of the victims of the Moscow trials in Darkness at Noon." He also reported the Spanish Civil War with clarity and gave a vigorous picture of the Palestine underground in Thieves in the Night." He Is a writer of power who has rejected the Stalinist lures and the fascist traps with equal disdain. One approaches Promise and Fulfilment," therefore, with a certain anticipation, unfeeling that the summary of the history of the British Mandate in Palestine, of Israels War of Independence, and a quick view of the new state will be satisfying and enlightening. Certainly Mr. Koestlers qualifications as a Zionist and as one who has lived in Israel fit him for the job. It is a small country to paraphrase Daniel Webster one of the smallest in the world; it represents no more than a dot on a global map, you could fit it five times into Los Angeles county, yet it has made more history and had more love expended upon it than any other on earth.

Here Abraham made his deal with God, here Jacob wrestled with ah angel, here Joseph was sold into slavery. Here Moses was permitted to gaze before his death, hers Joshua made the sun stand still. Here Samson slew the Philistines with the jawbone of an ass and later pushed apart the pillars of the temple of Dagon, killing more in his dying than in his life. Here David used his slingshot against Goliath and here his son Solomon married a thousand strange women. Here Jeremiah defied the un-American Committee of his day and was cast into the pit; here Amos and Isaiah Eromised the brotherhood of man.

iere the Maccabees won their miraculous victories; here the gentle Hillel taught -the doctrines later advanced by Jesus and Gandhi; here the founder of Christianity lived and died; here the bloodiest revolt ever fought against the overwhelming might of the Roman empire ended only By KEN CROSSEN, w. o. FIELDS: Ills FOLLIES AND By Robert Lewis Taylor. Doubleday: $3.50. The number of men who have made us laugh has been great, but the greatest of these have been those whose humor has contained social commentary.

Here, too, there has been a wide variance, which we are apt to forget as our comedians increasingly become merely the mouthpieces for rewritten jokes. In recent times, however, there have been two greats in America. One is the superb satirist, Charlie Chaplin, and the other was W. C. Fields.

W. a Fields: His Follies Fortunes is a delightful biography of the great comedian. While it is filled with the many wonderful stories about Fields (many of them unprintable in a family newspaper), it is also filled with the tragedy and unhappiness which made, up the life of Bill Fields, When you finally put the book down it will be with some of the love for the man which obviously was held by most of those who knew him. Growing up out of the worst poverty that is known in the American slums, Fields became one of the greatest jugglers In the world and then one of the greatest comedians in the world. By the end of his life, these abilities had editors knew the wife of the editor who had just sent it back.

When asked if she would like to read a Swedish book for them and advise them as to its salability, she readily accepted, not knowing that her husband had turned the book down a few days before! She found the book very excit ing and recommended that- Putnam publish It, but suggested that it be cut as it was quite long. Putnam decided to publish it, and hired the same woman to shorten it to its present sixe. No one knows whether or not the first editor has had the nerve to tell his wife that he passed up the opportunity to publish The Egyptian which she helped so much on Its way to head of the best seller list obVBopkshelfStory of man who rejected Egyptian By BOB CAMPBELL (President American Booksellers Association) One of the interesting facets of with a note to the effect that peo-the book besiness is that of liter- pie were not Interested just now ary agent In case you dont know in translations of Scandinavian just what a literary agent does, writers. he-or-she inveigles publishers to Kiss Saunders then sent the accept manuscripts for publication game copy to Putnam. One of their W.C.

FIELDS brought him a fortune, but the fortune did not bring Bill Fields happiness. He was still convinced that practically everyone in the world was a part of a gigantic plot against himself. In a sense he was right, for a large part of the world is in plot against the Bill Fields of the world. And Im sure the final clincher for Fields would have been the fact that his wishes about the disposal of his money are now being contested in court. There are so many stories about Fields, aU of -them the kind you repeat again and again with warm laughter, that it is impossible to start quoting them here.

My own favorite is of the time that Fields, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, and John Dekker tried to enlist in the Army during the recent war. But each of you -will find a favorite story, perhaps several of them. Nothing could have suited the end of the book, or the end of this column, so well as the ad which appeared in a trade paper on December 27, 1946. The most prejudiced and honest and beloved figure of our so-called colony went away on a day that he pretended to abhor Christmas. We.

loved him, and peculiarly enough he loved us. To the most authentic humorist since Mark Twain, to the greatest heart that has beaten since the Middle Ages W. C. Fields, our friend." It was signed by Dave Chasen, Billy Grady, Eddie Sutherland, Ben Hecht, Grant-land Rice, Greg La Cava, and Gene Fbwler. By LEO KATCHER Til AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF WILL ROGERS.

Edited by Donald Day. Houghton Mifflin: $3.50. It is drawing it fine to call this book an autobiography, but it defies almost any other descrip tion. Certainly this collection from Will Rogers writ Inga, speeches and ad libs tells the life story of a remarkable possibly, a great man. Donald Day did a fine Job of assembling the material.

The word edited is a euphemism. Day had better sense and taste than to attempt to edit Rogers. It is now fourteen years since Will Rogers died. He left on a plane trip because I got to see Alaska. Will probably would not have understood the mourning that encompassed the nation after he died.

He had a different idea about death, expressed it after the passing of his sister, Maud Lane. He wrote, If you live right, death is a Joke to you as far as fear is concerned. And he added, speaking of the way people felt ab6ut his sister, If they will love me like that at the finish, my life will not have been lit vain. This book is evidence that he remains loved. It is the normal' thing to refer to Will Rogers as a humorist But he wasn't funny while he was alive and his writings aren't funny now.

The Hew York Times once said editorially, Not unworthily is Will Rogers carrying on the tradition of Aristophanes on our comic stage. The wit of Aristophanes has endured through the ages. And Rogers has been dead just fourteen long years. But his writings sound as though they were of this moment; they are surprisingly timeless. Surprisingly because ogers wrote of his contemporary lay and ascribed much of his success to that fact.

A Joke dont have to be near as funny if its up to date. It could be, of course, that our today is so much like Rogers today. Now, as then, we are troubled with Communist scares, inter-service friction, taxes, rearmament, the possibility of war, political fumbling and outright stupidity. Rogers had his say on all of these. Here are some of his comments.

They're only a sample. For the full treatment, buy the book. You'll your money's worth. It would be awful hard to ruin a country by paying wages. Communism, to me, is one-third practice and two-thirds explanation." A conservative is a man who has plenty of money and dont see Ingram says: I am what I am I am not going to try to put on any cor respondence school type of personality People can take me or leave me just as I am.

Most people who assume this attitude think they are being very hard headed. On the contrary, are they not just being ruled by their vanity? refusing to make an effort to gear themselves in with others, such people set up all sorts of human ill will to work against them. All such people fall to achieve satisfaction from life. Some lose their jobs, their friends, their loved ones. Psychologists tell us this stub-kbom, senseless attitude is often up as a defense of an over-ensitive ego From Winning Your Way With People.

by K. C. Ingram. Whit tlcsey: $3. Cfe Ill a or as the agents express it they give the publishers the opportunity to publish great masterpieces of literature! Some of them also handle the stage and motion picture rights.

One of the well-known New York literary agents Miss Marion Saunders, has just spent a couple of weeks Out here Interviewing writers. During her visit Miss Saunders conferred with studios regarding the sale of the movie rights of Mika Waltaris best seller The Egyptian, and she told me a very interesting story concerning its American publication. Waltari is a Finn and the book was published in Finland in 1945 and has since been published in most European countries. When Miss Saunders secured the American rights she received copies in several languages. She immediately thought of a certain publishing house whose editor had married a cultured Swedish woman.

The Swedr ish edition was sent to him with the suggestion that his wife read and report on the book. However, back it came unread announcing A NEW COMPLETE ART BOOK DEPT. featuring Domaitic 'and Imported volumes oa painting, drawing, earamies, photography, antiques, costume, architecture. PICKWICK BOOKSHOP 4743 Hollywood Blvd. HO-V-Slfl Jt nlAOV, PAUL 512-1077 AR.

7-1291 IPtll UCmmtomm. WmdViB I 9 in MmMe I2df M. HIM Mar wJM PfeMf I iSSSlsSssaM4eeslMSSMSMSMMM KS by F. SPENCER CHAPMAN only bo described as sensational and yet every word of it is true the book is magnificent" Saturday Review At aff bookstores $3.71 W. W.

NORTON CO. 111 filth Ave.K.Y.3 SMintMY, OCT. III! 11 no UFI AMONO THE DOCTORS new scientific miracles with the bring mankind new hope. By the How today's doctors arc combining religion of the Good Samaritan to author of Miersbe Hasten. $4.7 "o) Lftl TAILORED ni MEDICAL MEETING The medics! meeting promised fun foe Dr.a.

Baker and his wife, but what it really brought was a challenge that shook the foundations of their lives. A novel of marriage and medicine that is arresting, deeply moving. and profoundly wise. By the author of Toe Quarry. $5.00 KUDS073 m'X g-': Jr ,0.

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