Circling a Continent

RIO GRANDE TO CAPE HORN. By for instance, with its "air-cooled cities" Carleton Beats. Boston: The Hough­ will seem to some altogether too ton Mifflin Co. 1943. 377 pp. $3.50. blissful. His own reasons for his op­ timism are themselves question marks: Reviewed by C. A. HUTCHINSON "the drugs available to medicine prob­ ably will be multiplied many times R. BEALS has been for many by discoveries in the Amazon," he years a prolific writer on the says, and "the rich vegetable life may Latin-American scene, ahd M yet provide the world's great source indeed, as the publishers inform us, of raw materials for synthetic prod­ no less a magazine than Time has ucts, plastics, and textiles." There are dubbed him "the best-informed living times, too, when his good sense seems writer on Latin America." His chief to desert him, such as, for example, claim to fame for many, however, when he remarks: "We, in the West­ is his outspokenness, and for this he ern Hemisphere, cannot hope to match deserves a round of applause from the growing productive capacities of those who believe that only by a the three hundred and fifty million realistic approach to the problems of people controlled by Hitler plus the the hemisphere will a firm basis for three hundred and fifty million now building inter-American solidarity be controlled by Japan. . . It would mean achieved. Carleton Beals slavery, exhaustion, ruin to accom­ Although "Rio Grande to Cape plish it." Ours is not a lost cause, formative. His remarks on Argentina Horn" makes the mistake of trying however, for he finds comfort in the to tell us about all twenty of the show a commendable sense of the dif­ idea that if we make a "concerted, ficulties through which that great Republics of Latin America at one planned, scientific assault upon the gasp (a device which no doubt ap­ country is progressing, even if "mak­ great Amazon basin" all will be well. ing Argentina a partner in our war peals more to the publisher than to Our jorney with Mr. Beals through the author) Mr. Beals stresses from enterprise" may not seem quite the the remaining countries of Latin "brilliant stroke" that he appears to the start that the countries of Latin America is both interesting and in- America are individual entities, dif­ believe. fering widely one from another. The implications of this fact for our policy toward them are obvious. As Mr. An lowan in Argentina Beals says "the political and economic problems of each southern nation are LETTERS FROM THE ARGEN­ with too much willingness nor with a so unique . . . that our policies . . . TINE. By Francis Herron. New zestful spirit." His letters are proof, have had to be adapted to each in­ York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1943. if anyone should want it, that this Is dividual case. . . ." If he had said that 320 pp. $3. the only satisfactory way to under­ stand another people. our policies ought to be adapted to Reviewed by H. A. CHARLES each case, he would probably, how­ Argentina continues in the fore­ ever, have been nearer to the truth. RANCl!fe HERRON, a young edi­ front of news from South America, and frequent mention is made of her After several satisfactory chapters tor from Iowa, approached the "prudent neutrality," her pride, her on Mexico, Mr. Beals discusses at F people of Argentina as one who dislike of the United States, her anger length what he calls the "American genuinely wanted to get to know at our restrictions against importing Mediterranean"—the Caribbean. Trop­ them, to put himself in their place her meat, and such matters. The ical islands, even in peaceful areas, and see them as they see themselves, reader of this book will not only find such as this, are often anything but to learn their problems, their politics, all these subjects ably discussed, but paradises for the overcrowded masses their thoughts about the United he will follow the author into prob- living on them, and the author's re­ States. In these letters to Mr. Walter ings of why and wherefore — how marks on Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico, S. Rogers, Director of the Institute people in Argentina think, as well as and other places where the policies of Current World Affairs, he describes what they think. of our Government control the destiny them quite simply as he saw them. of the people, make enli£htening if at He is not out to paint them black or Mr. Herron made many friends in times disillusioning reading. He is white, but to understand them. Argentina, and he has succeeded in particularly critical of the United Unlike most foreign observers, he bringing a good deal of the charm of States policy of fostering largo plan­ does not concentrate his attentions the country to these pages. He has tations of crops such as sugar and on Buenos Aires, for almost all his written a book that should be read now rubber and fibers. This divides time was spent in the provinces, in by everyone interested in Argentina up the islands into big estates under cities such as Mendoza and Cordoba. or, indeed, in South America. It is absentee American management and He stayed in the last named city the best recent book on its subject. promotes reliance on a single crop longer than anywhere else, and his system, immigration of cheap Negro attitude towards it and towards Ar­ The Foreign Policy Association is labor, and other evils harmful to the gentina in general may best be ex­ planning a series of four juvenile books economy, in his view. plained, perhaps, in his own words: on foreign eiffairs, the first of which, called "Team Work in the Americas," For all his years of experience with "Within my limits" he says "I have tried to be as much a Cordobese as will be published in October. "Team things Latin-American, there are Work in the Americas" is by Delia times when the reader would be well possible, to live my daily life with Goetz, associate director of the Wash­ advised to take Mr. Beals's remarks them, and to accept their customs ington Bureau of the Foreign Policy with a good pinch of salt. His view and really to try to do more than Association, and is illustrated in color of the future of the Amazon country, conform—for conforming is not done by Aline Appel.

48 TTieSaUtrdapRevieie

PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED Mining lown

COPPER CAMP:Stories of the World's Greatest Mining Town, Butte, Mon­ GEORGE SESSIONS PERRY tana. Compiled under the Montana Author ol Texas, A World in Itself Writers' Project, W.P.A. New York: Hastings House. 1943 308 pp., with has corraled "a sprightly and flavorsome an­ index. $2.75. thology . .. lots of grand stuff."

Reviewed by EDWIN L. SABIN —Orville Prescott, N. Y. Times.

r" I '^ HIS is not an ordered history of Butte; it is, as stated in the ex­ Roundup T planatory title, "stories" of Butte. To open "Copper Camp" is, in a way, to open a scrapbook devoted to the Time subject, Butte. The series of unnum­ bered articles and sketches that break Here are gifted newcomers and the pages hold the mirror up to Butte authors of established reputation; and provide a fascinating run of per­ here are short stories, excerpted sonages and events. novels and criticism, representing There is something of chronological the choicest Southwestern writing order in the foundings of the camp, in .. . savory and substantial fare spiced the chapters upon the social and labor with the inimitable Perry touch in in­ riots, the rivalrous careers, financial troduction and biographical sketches. and political, of the copper magnates $3.00 Marcus Daly, Augustus Heinze, Sena­ tor W. A. Clark, and in other recorded features of Butte progress. The stories for the book were gleaned right and left, above ground and under ground, from the files of daily prints, "Such books as from neglected veracious documents, from the testimony of men and women who knew things. So the reader of the succession of chronicles learns, in "Cop­ Three Times per Camp Cuisine," what specialties denoted the lunch boxes of the various nationalities among the mine workers; I Bow in "Kids of Butte," what the boy-hfe there has been; in "Cabbage and By CARL CLICK Kings," who have been the celebrities of rank and file, the humans and the animals; in "Girls of the Line," the in­ ,, , to buUd good wUl and better understanding terior aspects of a typical room of en­ tertainment; in "Men of the Mines," '•zi'i^^^^-zTrz'z what kind were some of these "Ameri­ cans from all points of the country, ;—^rrrriu...^.- with Finns, Irish, Serbs, Cornish, elaborately prepared Chinese meal. -Ph^hp V ^ Swedes, Norwegians, Welsh, Canadians, Doren Stem, Saturday Review. Scotch, Manxmen, Cleetermores, Ital­ ians, Poles, Austrians, and perhaps an old Mexican or Chilean miner"—the objectionable "Bohunks" (Balkan im­ migrants) being eliminated from the roU. Here, then, is Butte, place and com­ munity, on parade; the Butte of the Legends of the Amalgamated, the Anaconda, of Daly, Heinze, Clark with their once powerful millions and lavish yellow-backs, of United Nations Chicken Flats, Dublin Gulch, Coke- town, the Cabbage Patch, of Steam­ By FRANCES FROST boat Steve the Serb, Calahan the Bum, These are the folk tales of the nations now united in the war Fat Jack the cabman. Colonel Buckets for freedom—whether they be Asiatic or Anglo-Saxon, Nordic the racing man, Shoestring Annie . . .; or Greek—drawn from the springs of courage, imagination and to quote Berton Braley, from his cub faith, and freshly illumined by a poet's mastery. For older reporter days there: An ugly, raw, children and adults. Illustrated by Karl M. Shultheiss. $2^0 hard-fighting, hard-living, hard-drink­ ing town, "but also a gay, careless and tonic town composed of personalities WHITTLESEY HOUSE • McGraw-Hill Bldg. • N.Y. and individuals."

OCTOBER 16, 1943 49

PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED