BOOKS OF THE DAY
Still Life
. THERE can be few more important tasks for the intelligent voter to set himself than getting to understand what makes America " tick." It is no doubt equally important to discover what makes Russia (or her rulers) tick, but the task is beyond the average man, in a sense beyond any man, for the means of judgement are not provided. This is one reason why Professor Laski's book is so timely and valuable and why it is so superior to a book like the Webbs' Soviet Communism, to choose the most eminent example of speculation about the Soviet Union. Another reason is, of course, that Pro- fessor Laski's knowledge of the United States is wide and deep and informed by deep interest and regard.
That knowledge, that interest, are shown on nearly every page ; it is a knowledge based on extraordinarily wide reading and experience, and the interest extends to most, if not quite to all, aspects of American life. Compared with Professor Laski, Tocque- .ville knew comparatively little, and Bryce's immense knowledge was more restricted in extent and less informed by an organising idea than is the knowledge revealed in The American Democracy. The newcomer to American studies will learn a great deal from these packed pages, the fruits of thirty years' reading, observation and reflection. And the more you know of America, the more you will learn, the more you will be forced to reflect, the more certain American phenomena will be seen in a new light, the more certain accepted priorities will have to be reconsidered. It is a good thing that Professor Laski has written this book, even though it may mislead a good many doctrinaire readers, for it will evoke interest and induce reflection in others.
Yet ihhe book evokes admiration in many sections, it also provokes very serious doubts. There are doubts about the more or less universal validity of the organising principle. Professor Laski sees in American society a culture moulded by the practically uncontested domination of the business-man. I do not think the domination has been or is uncontested. But, in general, the domination of American life and standards by open economic considerations, if you like by business standards, is near enough the truth to serve to explain a great deal, if not all that Professor Laski makes it serve. Indeed, I think Professor Laski has missed one or two telling examples. The doctrine and practice of many spokesmen of American medicine illustrate that *domination. And some of the business-man's irritation with university methods (an irritation not confined to business-men) derives from astonishment and resentment at the necessarily wageful and incoherent character of university life.
But I am not happy with Professor Laski's use of " business-men " as a category. Sometimes." business-men " are the great magnates, the " tycoons " or if you like " robber barons " of the great epoch of expansion that began with the Civil War—the Goulds, Rocke- fellers, Harrimans. Sometimes (with no warning to the reader) they are transformed into the hundreds of thousands of Babbitts. I think there is a distinction and that it should be made, if only for the reason that taxation is ensuring that there will be no fortunes on the old scale. Nor do I share Professor Laski's conviction that nearly or quite all business-men are or ever were both rapacious and illiterate. I have known quite intelligent and amusing business- men, and there must have been some in the past. Nor am I as impressed as is Professor Laski by the judgement of Charles Francis Adams II that he never wanted to meet any of his business associates again. If it comes to that, I have never wanted to read his Auto- biography again.
It is difficult to avoid a suspicion that the continued prestige of the business-man in America is the source of great distress for Professor Laski, especially as it is reflected in the stubborn refusal of the American working man to turn Socialist. The American worker no longer believes that the business-man knows best about every- thing, but he either lacks faith in the State as he knows it or has trust in the economic competence of management. Anyway, he refuses to create an imitation of the British Labour Party, a phenomenon deserving, I think, of more sympathetic study than it gets here.
This wonder plus irritation accounts for one feature of this remarkable book that is I think unfortunate. Again and again Professor Laski illustrates some aspect of American life with an example that seems chosen to make America seem less attractive than it otherwise would be. Some of these instances prove his point ; some do not. Some, like the listing of Mr. Mencken with the defenders of the old economic order who thought it wise to mix it up with the old-time religion, can be only explained on the theory that Profesor Laski, like other people, has his King Charles' head. Mr. Mencken (and the Neo-Thomists of Chicago) are among them.
One of the most interesting sections of this book is the discussion of the minorities problem, almost exclusively the problems of Negroes and Jews. But the common reader would get from this discussion no adequate idea of the progress made by the American Negro in the last thirty years. And since Professor Laski stresses the sins of omission of the churches and of one church in particular, it might have been noted that the Jesuits at the University of St. Louis and the Archbishop of St. Louis in the parochial schools have abolished racial segregation, which is more than the New Deal has been able to do in Washington where, by the way, the only theatre housing living actors is at the Catholic University and that because the university does not practise segregation of its audiences. The same blind spot can be seen in the treatment of anti-Semitism. I agree with ProfBsor Laski that it has increased in the past thirty years ; it may even be increasing now, though I doubt it. But the Jews (and Negroes) are not the only minority group discriminated against in schools, colleges, clubs. Catholics are, too. When, a few pages later, Professor Laski recounts the astonishingly rapid rise of the immigrant Carl Schurz in American politics, one is forced to wonder how far- and fast he would have got had he remained a Catholic.
One of the tragOies of American life is the hostility of minorities to each other, for example the anti-Semitism of many New York Negroes. And I do not believe that the sole explanation is the domination of the wicked business-man. It seems to me highly undemocratic to exonerate, even by implication, the mass of the American people from the national sins. If they have no respon- sibilities, I do ncit,see why they should have votes. I could raise other points, like the curious choice of the atrocious treatment of the Nisei (whose legal fig-leaf was removed by Professor Rostow) to make a side swipe at British policy in Hongkong. But there is one methodo- logical doubt that is more serious. Formally, this book is a descrip- tion. of contemporary America, but how often the instances are thirty years old ! That is all right if America has not changed seriously in that time. But it has changed seriously, though not always in desir- able ways and seldom in the exact way that Britain has changed, though often roughly in the same direction. I fear that Professor Laski would regard my devotion to chronology as pedantic, but there it is.
Professor Laski's key opens many doors, and happily, in practice, he is far less of a doctrinaire than he sets out to be. But he does thrust his key into locks it will not open, and the key bends. As I share the late Morris Cohen's scepticism about these universal pick- locks I am not surprised, but—to conclude—this one does open a good many locks and Professor Laski happily walks through many open doors to our profit.
D. W. BROGAN.
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