Omaha World-Herald from Omaha, Nebraska • 31

SUNDAY WORLD HERALDS OMAHA NEB JUNE 13 1937 Americas Great Rivers as actors in History News of Books Alusic and A rt An Approach to History by the Rivers By George Grimes Literary Editor KENNEBEC: CRADLE AMERICANS By Robert Tristram Coffin (arrar Rinehart $250) rriTH this strong and beauti ful book a new series is offered the readers of America It is to be a series of books about the great rivers of the land They are books that will be filled with legend with Stories from our history with romance with the cold facts of economies with nature If the succeeding volumes carry the pace and interest of the books will be an important contribution to the story of the United States Mr Coffin is a poet Maybe a poet is the best kind of ar tist to tell the story of a river At any rate he tells the story of Kennebec so well that every page grips attention He goes back into the past of the dawn men for his his tory He brings it along with such stirring recitals as that of the brave inarch of men during the revolution in the futile attempt to capture Quebec He weaves into the tale the whispers about Aaron Burr who was with Arnold and his romance with Jacataqua the half rench half Indiau queen of the Kennebecs There is a love story for you! And he tells of strong Maine men and splendid Maine wom en of boats and of land trails of fine cooking and hearty eat ing Oh it is a fine tale of America one to fill the readers with pride The book is illus trated with distinction by Mait land de Gorgoza John Selby for the Associated Press tells the story of the idea behind the rivers of Amer ica series I quote in part from his report: The purpose of the series is recreation of the American story as a folk saga an inter pretation of our past by poets and Constance Lindsay Skinner Canadian author of plays novels and important contributions to Yale university's of series had the first Miss Lindsay is to do a river or two herself She has also farmed out quite a respectable number to others or example Carl Carmer who stuck pins in York with for a Lonesome will write about the Hudson The Mississippi is be ing divided up among several authors Walter Havighurst has the upper end Blair Niles hitherto best known for books set in Central and South America is assigned the James river center of Vir history Constance Rourke whose cap tured the connoisseurs last winter is doing the Ohio And Struthers Burt is at work on the Powder river in Colo rado and Wyoming A Romantic Lively Novel Girl inds Love Ad venture Old England THE TALISMAN RING By Georgette Heyer Doran $2) This is a tale of sheer roman tic adventure designed for noth ing but whiling away of an eve ning in pleasant reading and succeeding admirably in its de sign Miss Heyer who is well and known as the writer of mysteries steps a little outside that field in this novel to give us a light historical ro mance it has to do with Eustacie half rench half English a spir ited and girl of 18 who rebels against a marriage of con venience with Sir Tristram Shield Her grandfather had ar ranged the wedding on his death bed but Eustacie who had read her share of novels wanted ad venture and Tristram seemed a dullish sort to her a fellow who had no conversation and whose ideas of womanhood were too Staid So she ups and runs away Smack into the hands of her cousin Ludovic a smuggler who had been outlawed under suspi cion' of murder The very night f1" their encounter he is wounded fleeing the excise men and she begins living the adventures she had craved Aou can go on from there In volved in the unraveling of the Plot is the identity of the mur derer in whose place Ludovic was accused and the fate of the tahsman ring The time of the is the regency period in England when the rench peo ple were guillotining their royal and Eustacie knew how ovely and proud she would have 7 Le? ln a tumbril dressed all in headed for her execution sort' tMs is a bright pert interesting yarn 9 A presumably hot book about 'Cry cold adventure comes ingVst it Is the first com nuhr stOry according to the of nr The anomaly rn towns resting on per al ice orchards above tfte arctic circle A ait i'EorLy Thousandgainst the This chart of the Kennebec is the frontispiece of "Kennebec: Cradle of Americans" A3 I xi ii vT I I 1 wk i II I i Lz imiUijijiiiirMjlqB I I X'UX ifl I ii Six fa UC I JM I i i 7 10x4 11 I W7 KENNEBEC Ztfi Tl JO 'Tween Lines ublishers Tell Plans for New Books by Known riters The Vanguard Press an nounces for fall publication by erdinand Lundberg author of Sixty concerns the dynasties of wealth really own the United States and domi nates its politics and social It is a documented factual study designed to show the contemporary uses of the great American fortunes Al though amassed on an individual basis these fortunes have in the course of time become stabilized on a family basis they operate in numerous fashions and devi ous which Sixty reveals awards to this month the credit for discovering a new game but is doubtful if it will ever become very popular is played a revolver take out one cartridge spin the cylinder put the muzzle to your head and pull the trigger If lucky you pick the empty chamber If not well you won't bother to play Russian roulette again A new novel by Harvey er gusson entitled Life of is announced by Alfred A 'Knopf for publication July 2 It is described as story of a man who enjoyed the scene is a southwestern town and the time is this century with most of the action occurring in the 1920' This is Mr first novel in seven years Appleton Century will publish this fall the pick of the ghost stories of Edith Wharton who is one of the most distinguished living writers in this field and who has long been noted for her skill in it This omnibus volume will be entitled The volume will contain a pref atory essay by Mrs Wharton on the ghost story which coming from the pen of such a master of prose fiction can be counted on to be a significant piece of liter ary criticism Lee orest wrote his stirring new novel of the fur trappers in the Rockies of the which has just been published by Appleton Century in jail Air orest was not serving a sentence for burglary or a sitdown strike he simply lives in jail The jail is in Tyrone which refused to become a ghost town when itdied A copper company build ing Tyrone during the boom days of the world war lined pinion dotted ridges and snag canyons tile roofed bunga lows and about a plaza it erect ed beautiful office and bank buildings as well as a large de partment store all in lovely Spanish architecture But with in five years cheap copper had thinned population from six thousand to a mere hundred Today the lovely homes and pic turesque country have attracted a cosmopolitan group of the wcll to lo Mr orest has his studio in the abandoned jail be cause secluded in a canyon the one time prison is the quietest nook in town Encouragement BRAVE By William Heyliger (Appleton Century $150) Mr Heyliger' little novel is intended to encourage bravery in meeting hard times It tells of a young couple who finding no employment for their talents as teacher and nurse scrape together $350 and try to make a living on a small farm Their hard work their economies their loyalty to each other their battle against dat old debbil Mortgage provide a plot High Courage Tale New Novel in Style of and BLIND MAN'S YEAR By War wick Deeping (Knopf $2) Pretty noble people make up Air Deeping's new novel They are brave in the face of misfor tune: they love with all the fi delity and sublimity possible in the grand passion they are sympathetic those in 'dis tress This might sound stuffy and yet there is In "Blind Man's a real awareness of life and if the leading characters are noble they force that nobility officially upon you The tale is told with the same sim plicity and fervor that marked and and it is likely to have the same popular appeal The book mainly has to do with a very successful woman writer Douglas Gerard who kept her personality a secret by reso lutely staying away from the world and denying herself to the newspapers Her secret was that one side of her face was cursed with a disfiguring birth mark and that secret she meant to keep from a prying public She enjoyed her secluded home near the sea and she might have lived in concealed contentment had not fate intervened The intervention was made in the form of an airplane which crashed in a fog on her land The pilot badly injured is carried into her home to be nursed back to and blindness You do not have to be told that he falls in love with Douglas and she devotes her self to helping him overcome his despair at his fate They both through their woes and if coincidence is called upon too heavily probably forgive that How to Write Letters That Have Individuality TAKE A LETTER PLEASE! A Cyclopedia of Business and Social Correspondence By John Opdycke (unk Wagnails $275) Better than the mill run of books on writing letters of all kinds is this one because it is made up not of forms con ceived by the author but of extracts from innumerable pri vate and business letters that have been written by many per sons on every conceivable topic Thus the letter writer gets a glimpse of the thing that gives a individuality He give his own letter per sonality by copying the letters of others He can however discover how they managed to supply that intimate style that friendly basis between letter writer and recipient which makes a letter effective and good The book contains also glar ing examples of the cliches that mar most correspondence be ginning with what is probably the most frequently used anil worst of all: of the 15 inst at hand and contents noted" There are also models of col lection letters that might make even a dead beat come across Mexican Girl DARK MADONNA By Rich ard Summers (Caxton $250) tThe Mexicans who live in the American southwest provide the characters for this simple fac tual? somewhat crude but al ways effective story The cen tral figure is the pretty Mexi can girl Lupe ignorant super stitious religious spirited There is honesty in the telling pas sion suffering and kindness it is a first novel about a little known people which casts light upon their life A Reporter Tells Lively World Story BLOOD ON THE MOON By Linton Wells (Houghton Miff lin $3) ANOTHER newspaper man who has been just about every place and seen just about everything sets down the story of his life and his career Lin ton book is good reading It is not quite the book the Walter was or that John nor even Webb although it is closely akin to But it is a book packed and jammed with incident keen with a good sensitive in terpretation and recording of events lively amusing at times and when the need arises indig nant too I think it will prove rich and satisfying reading for those who like the inside story of events who enjoy 'vicarious adventures and who like the re actions of a vigorous forceful personality to the great events of the day His experiences get into pay dirt with the world war It happened that he had the oppor tunity to observe it on a little known and less exploited front of Asia He spent some time for instance with the white army of Kolchak after the war when that man was leading a forlorn hope against the reds and his presence with Kolchak when he was turned over to the bolsheviks meant Wells was tossed into jail I mention that because not a little of work for newspa pers and press associations has been on just such out of the way assignments He made one of the first fast round the world flights and tells about it interestingly He spent some time in the south seas and became a king of sorts of an island tribe He covered the prince of visit to the United States in the days before kingship and Wally and his impressions of David Windsor are fresh and in teresting He reports that the man who gave up the throne for love had a positive distaste for the kingship even in those days and he quotes the prince as ask ing one time: wasn't I born to be treated like other peo as a human being?" An other remark pregnant events have proved with meaning was If only I could get away from all the sycophancy!" One could multiply such brief excerpts from the book by the scores for there is material in this single volume for many a lively tale Linton Wells reveals himself as a man fond of the unusual with a taste for adventure and the happy knack of falling into it Some of his experiences were shared with his wife who had made a name for herself as a woman flier but who accompa nied him on some of his more precarious assignments If you want an informative intelligent lively account of war fare from the world war to Ethiopia of catastrophe that in cludes the Japanese earthquake of sights and sounds in the far corners of the globe you'll find Mr autobiography most stimulating Dorothy Baker David Dejong 'I Win $1000 Awards Houghton Mifflin company an nounces that their two literary fellowships for 1937 have been awarded to Dorothy Baker of El Cerrito Cal and David Cor nel DeJong of New York City Each of the two winners will re ceive one thousand dollars in ad dition to the usual royalties and advances These literary fellowships are awarded annually for the pur pose of encouraging writers of promise and financially assist them to complete projected works David Cornel DeJong is re ceiving the fellowship for a long novel the scene of which is laid in Holland It will be woven out of rich memories centering about the old historic fishing town of Wierum on the shore of the North sea where he spent his childhood He lias lived in America since 1917 and his lit erary work has appeared in such periodicals as Scribners Atlan tic Monthly Bazaar Poetry Esquire etc He has written one book ulla published in 1934 Mrs project is one of tlie most original submitted a swiftly moving story of a jazz musician who is a genius in the art of taking him from his origin in one of the crassest American backgrounds through his triumphs in New York City to his sudden decline Mrs Ba ker is herself a trained and tal ented musician who has fol lowed popular music closely for some 15 years Her literary work has appeared in Vanity" air Coronet the New Republic etc Tabloid Murder Solved THE VERA GERARD CASE By Joseph Cottin Cooke (Manthorn Burack $2) This is a solution of a sensa tional murder the tabloid cx ploited killing' of Vivian Gordon New York butterly whose death has not yet been solved The author offers an ingenious solu tion in a story that is below the average lalc rank Noon Concert Music Hour 1 WPA Orchestras Play on Courthouse Play 4 Promenade concerts by the Omaha Civic orchestra and the Civic Negro Concert orchestra of the WPA federal music proj ect given daily at noon on the courthouse plaza have brought messages of appreciation to Wil liam Meyers state director since their inauguration last Monday The promenade' concerts this summer are to be developed with a twofold purpose: To provide the very best in music lor the noonday throng of business folk 'shoppers and visitors and to Tcarn through the medium of the request deposit box comment and letter what appears to popular favor among those who shear the orchestra The same procedure is to be followed at the concerts in' Ben son on Tuesday night those to held on the lawn of St' Jos hospital on Wednesday nights in fact at all concerts to be held anywhere by units of the federal' music proj cct Plans for the A'all and winter season include a series of aug mented orchestral engagements with guest 'artists' and conduc tors of national reputation A new series of music appreciation concerts is being' prepared High school and col lege music appreciation con certs are being arranged with a scries for such groups as parent teacher associations designed to show just what is being brought to the young people Guy Maier assistant to Dr Nikolai Sokoloff national direc tor of the federal music project on his visit to Omaha last week stated that it shall be the object of the project everywhere to im prove the quality of musician ship and program material During May units of the fed eral music project WPA in Oma ha and Nebraska Served 111168 persons Of Hildegarde on Crime Trail Amusing Tale Albeit About Murder THE PUZZLE THE BLUE BANDERILLA By Stuart Palmer (Crime club $2) Those who have followed the sleuthing of Hildegarde With ers the old maid ex school teacher who sets Inspector Oscar Piper on the right trail will en joy the new record of her ad ventures This is a mystery story with not a little humor and with a devious trail of murder Be ginning with the death of an innocent Mexican customs agent who sniffed a bottle of perfume and died it carries on into the bull ring at Mexico City where an American is slain with a blue banderilla thrust through his back into his heart Examine Aiderman Mabie the American promoters Lighton and Hansen and ask why Mrs Mabie bought so many curios ollow Dulcie Prothero who be came suspect No 1 and give attention to the Yankers matador All of these are in volved in the intricacies of the case Do you remember that of all precious stones Mexico has no emeralds? Hildegarde began sending telegrams Piper as she turned up information back in New York but soon she was im pelled to take a plane to Mexico City to get into the thick of things and the heart of the mys tery Her persistence and shrewdness are rewarded in the end and I guess you will be surprised Piano and Violin Recital Thursday Mrs Myrtle Roy Mulligan and Mrs Bess Roy redericksen will present the following pupils in a piano and violin recital Thurs day evening at 7 :45 at the South Side library hall Lois and Ruth Lehmer Rose mary and Betty Clare Mulli gan Bernita and Catherine Marie Joyce Joanne Brookman Diane Dergan Elaine Sieczkow ski Alice Ann Carlson Kather ine Sackett Victor Carol Ann and Jean Rerucha Alice Mer na and Margaret Mulligan Ed ward Berry Joe Roy Ralph and Louise redericksen Agnes Mayer Norma Elsasser Bev erly Hyde Marion Marshall Robert Vostrejs Miss Dorothy Klever to Present Pupils Miss Dorothy Klever will present the following piano pupils in recital Monday eve ning at auditorium: Mary Belle Coleman Eileen Duncomb Betty Jane Earp Phyllis Earp Cecil isher Rob ert Green Donald Hansen Gloria Heggens Grace Jean Hyde Kathleen O'Brien Vir ginia Lee Pierce Clifton Ross James Summers Sara Anna Smith Doris Mae Westfall Mar jorie Williams Arthur Pilant Devah Hansen To Give Song Recital Thursday' evening Mary itz: simmons Massie will precent Claire arrell Henderson in a song recital accompanied by Helen Gcrin Lang She will be assisted by Gladys Ha mstreet" This illustration by Maitland De Gogorza is from the end papers for "Kennebec: Cradle of Americans" V's 4 I 7 4 4 7 a I I 7 ft 7 r7 i A Designs for Mural Paintings Shown at Joslyn e'm i al By Mary Pollard Hull Like the pictures in a book mural paintings are illustrations They have pictorial subjects which are usually appropriate to the setting or1 locality either obviously or symbolically and the layman feelsthatjhe can "sec what there isjto without be ing called upon to exercise real appreciation of art Then toomurals are generally of an im pressive size and are located so prominently that the public can not help seeing them So the public has finally come to like them and accept them and con sequently the government feels justified in commissioning mural painters to decorate its federal buildings It appears simple enough The treasury department has con ducted a competition for the pur pose of selecting the artists to do the work and is now circu lating the results in the form of mural cartoons and design sketches But from study of the display of mural designs which have been accepted by the government it appears that the problem is not so simple The exhibition of these which is being shown in the galleries at the Joslyn Me morial this month looks as though it might be intended to illustrate all the degrees of good and bad in mural art In spite of the care which was supposed to be exercised in the selection of painters to do the murals many of the designs are cer tainly not outstanding examples of mural art Of course most of the cartoons are small and unfinished and when full size and "in might look quite different But this really isn't where the rub comes Special Problems in Mural Painting Mural painting is a special and unique form of art and it is one which is primarily based on the problems of its limitations or example there is the matter of size arid shape of the spaces to be decorated An artist may ordinarily choose whatever can vas he wishes but the mural artist Henry Varnum Poor in his sketches has had to fit his compositions to panels almost 20 feet high and scarcely three feet wide while Zoellner has had to accommodate his designs to four little semicircular spaces over windows Both have met this problem with satisfactory success but this is not generally true throughout the show There are a number of other limitations which arise directly from the fact that murals are really architectural decorations rather than individual paintings The color for instance must work toward decorative har mony and the subject of the mu ral picture must be appropriate to the character of the building without becoming too common place And then there is a rath er interesting paradox that af fects murals: A painting ordi narily should create an illusion of third dimension or distance depth but in mural painting this illusion must not be so convinc ing as to destroy the flatness of the wall nor yet so unconvinc ing as to lose pictorial depth In the treasury murals at the Me morial design looks while Byron Ben Boyd's would certainly cut too deep into the wall Since the mural picture is subordinate to the architecture it should contribute to the ap pearance of architectural strength and should literally support its own top border Its composition should appear to balance as as a pair of scales lest it the eye of the observer and thus de stroy the architect's line balance In other worjls a mural re quires expert kriowledge and skill plus a special knowledge of the limitations and a genius for meeting these limitations spon taneously There have been very few great mural painters in his torj' so it is unlikely that the government will many under the present project How ever one thing is particularly noticeable in the proj ect display It is the experienced successful artists have cre ated the most successful mural designs as is usually the case in almost any art exhibit Recital Program This Afternoon The program at the Joslyn Me morial today at 4 is to be an or gan recital by Martin Bush assisted by Virginia Elfrink pianist Harry A ranck Writes Book About Travel in Hawaii ROAMING IN HAWAII Harry A ranck (Stokes $350) Harry travel books are always first rate He goes places and sees and does things and he can tell about them in a way that carries the reader with him There is truth ex cellent reporting keen percep in his books he makes the lands he visits come alive for us out of the vague mys teries of mere geography He presents Hawaii as a piece of America and rapidly becom 'ing ever more American in its manner of living and outlook on life Miss Ida Morse Pupils in Recital Pupils of Miss Ida Morse will give a piano recital Tues day at 2:30 at her studio 1516 Dodge street Taking part will be Mesdames Salyard Louella Semrad Darts Ruth Comstock Misses Joyce Johnson Loretta Micek Loucilla McNutt Doro thy Koon Marguerite Salyard Lois Davis Mary Smith Alvina Schumann Mary Manhart Lois Carpender Virginia McAvin June Olsen Virginia Slizewski Myrtle Lang: Charles Nichols rederick Schumann James Smith Billie Carpender red Nichols Loucilla McNutt will give a reading and Martha and Ruby Reynolds will sing A Crook May Not Be One Who Murders THE BORGIA BLADE By lorence Ryerson and Colin Clements (Appleton Century $2) Somewhat unusual is this mystery crime tale for it tells of a master criminal Silver a swindler who deals in a big way in antiques who becomes involved in a murder He is innocent but hard put to it to prove his innocence The book is not without interest although it fails to reach the top of its class Singers to Give Recital Today Voice pupils of Maude Gutz nier will be presented in re cital tills afternoon at 5 at the Paxton hotel ballroom when guest singers will be Helen Led ford Parker and William Miller of Lincoln and Hansen of Omaha who has been at tending the University of Ne braska the past two years Others on the: program: Anna Crenshaw Doris DeWitt Veron 'ica 'Adrian Geneve Hurzig Natalie Cowman Orabelle With Mary Jane rance Mil dred Gibson Slocum Accom panists will be Mrs Karl Wern dorff and Mrs Lloyd Pierce Pupils in Monday Recital On Monday evening the fol lowing pupils of Mrs Gcil McMonies will be presented in recital at her resider Shirley Chorney Verner Motchman Doris Ehlers Carlo Caccamo Margie Donahoe Don ald Wilson Margaret Trumbull Ruth Rosinsky Jane Condon Edgar Marquiss Marie Dolezal osephine Ricceri Barbara Hunter Shirley Sellz Dorothy Wranic Jacqueline Woodhouse Rosemary Webb Lucia Nanfito and Melba Schrawger Guest students will be Betty Durkee and John Durkee pupils of Miss Erma Quinn Mrs Mc Monies will be assisted in en tertr by Mrs Wranic and Miss Dorothy Wranic a a Resigns Post Walter Graham director of Hanscom Park Methodist choir a volunteer organization for the past 21 years has resigned ef fective July 1 During this period 29 singers have gone directly from the choir to paid positions elsewhere At the same time through work with the choir and personal solicitation over 50 persons have been added to the membership of the church Chambers Is Collected Now Writer Emerges as One Worth Keeping New York June 12 3 A new name has been added to the list of American authors whose books are being Robert Chambers Professors may lift eyebrows critics may throw up their hands but the fact remains that the man who often was damned in his lifetime as the purveyor of shallow romance now is emerging as a writer who added something very definite to the history of American letters or some years there had ex isted a casual collecting inter est in early tales of the supernatural and in his American historical romances but this year a distinct trend of interest in other firsts has become apparent One result was the admission of Chambers to that holy of holies irst Edi a volume listing initial editions of works by collected writers Chambers with 87 books to his credit takes up a sizeable space in the volume which is a sort of bible in the book trade Prices Not Yet High Then again Chambers is more and more appearing in the catalogs of book dealers With a few exceptions the prices are high and probably will not rise appreciably because of the large first editions of many of his books Chambers was one of the most prolific writers of recent did most of his work in long hand and many of his books have been on best seller lists since the turn of the cen tury However it is possible only to surmise the total sale of his novels His publishers decline to give figures A rough guess would be several million copies The keystone of a collection is a little volume called King in published obscurely by Ten nyson Neely at Chicago in 1895 It was second book but one destined to receive a tremendous amount of critical notice Next is a novel of the American revolution pub lished in 1901 and called by some critics one of the best American historical romances Some even say the best Also sought is a rare volume of verse the an other Chicago publication of the year 1896 Many of the verses were ballads in the Kiplingesque mode of the moment and one Recruit" often has been quoted It contains the familiar lines: Yer belt is unhookit Yer cap is on crookit Ye may not be dhrunk But be jabers ye look it! Probably Chambers preferred to forget this maiden effort in verse but nevertheless the me dium of poetry was one in which he often worked All of ms early books of fiction are filled poetic dedications pro logues epilogues and chapter headings also in the Kipling tradition Short Stories Too King in is a volume of short stories many of a ghostly nature some of stark horror The scenes of a few are laid in the Washing ton Square of artist days others in the Paris of his student days Probably half of work is historical His first three books of this nature were on the ranco Prussian war a theme undoubtedly suggested by his seven years in rance as an art student In between the historical novels Chambers society novels based on cur rent themes and on these some of the most devastating criti cism was directed although friend and foe alike met on a common ground that he knew how to tell a story Chambers never answered the criticisms but he did once saythat if he was held to be a good story teller that would satisfy him Chambers was bom in Brook lyn in 1865 He died in 1933 His eighty seventh book will be published in the fall The pres ent collectors of Chambers seem to be persons who like to read him and that in the long run is not a bad test 17tli Summer Session Departments: Grades 1 to 12 and Adult Tutoring PRATT SCHOOL of INDIVIDUAL INSTRUCTIONAccredited) 402 36th HA 2949 The Public Is invited! Annual Recital of Students from the class of3TAUDE GUTZMER Paxton Hotel Ball Room June 13 clock i School of Piano I rrcQ fVAXJ RORKTJTTM UK1X3O 1 MISS BEKNEICE DU GHEE Assistant Teachert i August Borglum i 2661 DOUGLAS ST i ft.