NYU Washington Square College - Album Yearbook (New York, NY)

Page 25 text:

Breasted has been equally a loss lor both an- thropology and history. The Oriental Insti- tute at Chicago, however, which he built up, is in able hands, and is preparing to dig on an increasingly large scale. ln historical scholarship there has been a continued growth of emphasis on economics, but lack of any interpretation, or any scale ol' values, has robbed the work of much signi- ficance for the lay reader. The first volume of a glossary of medieval business and econo- mic terminology appearing this year is only the raw material for scholarship, and while Professor Scheville in l1is f'History of Flor- ence sheds new light on the importance of urban commercial life in the coming of the Renaissance the book is nevertheless old style narrative history. The only 'outstanding work in the modern European field, the XVebb's book on Russia, is refreshing for the very rea- son that it is inspired by a belief in certain values and conclusions, but the scholar, no matter how friendly. must recognize weak- nesses in research. To one who feels that the materialist his- torians represent the principal hope for Amer- ican historical scholarship, the past year has been a good deal of a disappointment. No Marxian writing ol any importance has ap- peared, unless we place Curti's Pence or lVnr, and Miller's Sam ff1fn1ns in this category. The outstanding contenders for the Pulitzer prizes in history and biography all belong in the so-called liberal tradition, their bias is personal and implicit rather than part of a deliberate philosophic approach. Commager's Tlleodore Parker, Nevin's Hamilton Fish, Brook's Flowering of New England repre- sent the best of this tradition, and will prob- ably, among them, win one or both prizes. The real trouble, I suspect, with the newer economic, sociological, and psychologi- cal sclrolars is that they are mainly young men who lack, as yet, the combination of profound knowledge and creative ability necessary to produce great work. There should be a flower- ing ol' these scholarship qualities during the next decade, if it is not completely lost in ex- ternal confusion. THoMAs COCHRAN The Economic Trend Economic thinking at any particular time is a compound of two sets of forces, the im- mediate phenomena ol economic life and the adjustment of these raw materials to a co- herent and logical body of theory. Concrete developments of recent years have been con- cerned primarily with the behavior of an eco- nomic system in a period of depression, and with mechanisms for inducing prosperity. In a depression period, the important raw mater- ials are a collapse of speculation and the mar- ket for funds, the necessity for liquidation on the part of credit institutions and production units, a decline in production, a stagnation of capital goods industries, a drop in national and personal incomes, and a large volume ol' unemployment. These are the usual concom- itants ol' depressions. The conventional tech- niques utilized in previous similar periods of stress have usually been designed to wipe the 21

Page 24 text:

whose plots are sensational like The Thin Mun and Great Guy. But for consistent real- istic expression I believe Dorlszuorth was the best American film of the year, and it is very likely that, of all the forms of literature, the moving picture is the one in which we shall see the most hopeful immediate development. The novel has a contrary change. The phenomenal popularity of Gone With the Wind shows that the popular taste has de- generated even from the low level established by Anthony Adverse. Unless the book adver- tisers are to blame, the public demand is now for the long chronicle novel without relation to present modes of living, middle class dreams of well-being are now pushed back into past eras. The better type of novel, such as con- tinues to flourish fwitness Celine's journey lo ll1e End ofNigl1I and Gilloux' Bifler Vir- roryj 3 the novel of decadence in which all the torturous bafllements of the intellectual re- ceive expression has almost entirely lost out in this country. The chief representative of it is Faulkner's Afzsnlonz, Absalom, but this novel is verbose and blurred in comparison with his earlier and better work. At the same time the left novel has at length begun to justify itself in response, in part perhaps, to'criticism, but certainly to a much greater degree because a new genera- tion of novelists is better assimilating the new attitude of the working class. The stilted style, the plot constructed from a formula, the absorption primarily in radical dogma, that characterized the earlier left fiction, have now begun to disappear. The priority in this achievement, though it was only partially suc- cessful, was Steinbeck's In Dubiotts Bnllfe, which reacted almost too extremely front the flabby and the pedantic. It is in Engstrand's Izzrfnrlers that the new tendency is best rep- resented. This remarkable lirst novel brings into our left Hction qualities of passion and vitality that before we have had to go to Gi- ono, Malraux, and French left fiction gen- erally, to secure. But it would be premature, from a few examples, to predict a new move- ment in proletarian fiction. The drama has lagged the worst of all- as far as the left stage is concerned. NVith the single doubtful exception of Lawson's ilfarcll- ing Song, which suffers front a clumsy ending, the left theatre has been in a state of collapse. The faults of the earlier left novel continue in it, and audiences are no longer responsive. Only in the realm of the play about war, in Bury llte Dead, a short curtain raiser, is there a survival of the creative power we witnessed a few years ago in Sfeveflore and Lawsonls own Pror'e.rsionnf. But with the retreat of the Depression, the theatre, generally speaking, has revived, and is repeating in dramatic form the points of view of the novel. The play of bafllement so admired by Mr. Krutch, con- tinues to find illustration in the dramas of Maxwell Anderson, who conceals his distress in the elevated atmosphere of poetry or of a more heroic age. And we always have with us Noel Coward and the musical play to take our attention away from any serious contact with life through those banalities that in our unhappy period pass for wit. Certainly the most hopeful aspect of the American theatre this last season has been the revival of Shake- speare in the Howard and Gielgud Hrnnlefs,,' and Evans' Rirlmrrl II. But the real source of creative power in the American theatre con- tinues to be neither the left nor the commer- cial theatre, but the YVPA, whether it be in the revival of Dr. Fnztslus or the rich spon- taneous contemporary chronicle of Power and other plays in the living newspaper stories. EDXVIN BERRY BURGUNI 17

Page 26 text:

slate cleanf' through permitting mortgages to be foreclosed and bankruptcies to operate in wholesale fashion, No effective and gener- ally designated methods have been applied, although in almost every major depression there have been pressures in the direction of control at some point or other. The crisis of the early 1930's created a situation in which the pressures were tremend- ously increased, primarily because the highly integrated system of modern production came near collapsing under its own weight, and the widespread effect of prospective ruin covered a wider base than ever before. The control measures of the New Deal were created to meet the extreme need. Those measures, new only in the sense of their num- ber and inclusive covering, were designed for immediate relief, but also bore evidences of a desire to affect long-run reforms. In the Hrst category were credit institutions organized and financed by the federal government through which business and finance might obtain tem- porary relief: a program of Public Wo1'ks to stimulate buying and employ workmen, a National Industrial Recovery Act, setting up codes -of fair business practices, limiting pro- duction, and recognizing labor's claim by min- imum wage, maximum hour and collective bargaining sectionsg the attempted effort to achieve a rising trend of prices by adjustments in the money and credit system, tending in many respects to depart from the system of hard money and actually going off the gold standard: the efforts at crop control, and re- lief for the agricultural population, and the steps taken for relieving directly the distress of the unemployed. In the second category are the more long- run reform measures: control of the issue and sale of securities, closer integration of credit institutions through revamping the banking 29 lawsg insurance of batik depositsg utilities leg- islationg the T.V.A.g housing and resettlement programsg soil conservationg national control of labor relations through guarantee of col- lective bargainingg a program of social legis- lationg and, finally a proposal for reform of the Supreme Court, to permit effective action in these areas. It would be erroneous to assume that these trends toward reform are consistent or entirely effective. They represent on the whole the resultant of pressures of various groups, all concerned over their own futures and the protection of their vested interests. Some have been overturned by the courtsg others have been discarded or rendered ineffective in ac- tual practice. The significant practical re- sults are achieved by the abilities of interest groups to mold conditions to their liking. For example, the open permit to restrict competi- tion under the NIRA doubles the drift toward monopoly in instances where business men were in position to make use of an unusual situation. Organized labor likewise has made use of the situation to consolidate gains, as evidenced by the immediate activity of the unions in 1933, the upsurge culminating in the C.I.O. in the years following. Practically, these developments have re- asserted the concept of human welfare as against the inviolability of vested property holdings. The sit-down strikes, though prag- matic in their outlook, are nevertheless as- serting in their action this new type of vested right. Attention has been focussed also upon the achievement and maintenance of a not- too-fluctuating purchasing power, and the at- tainment of a reasonably good standard of liv- ing for the whole population as a prerequisite to economic prosperity and stability. Theoretically these trends have produced resounding repercussions, bringing to a cli-