G. B. S. Takes His Fling at Politics EVERYBODY'S POLITICAL WHAT'S ency, puckishness par excellence, to say, where disparity of income WHAT? By George Bernard Shaw. were a part of his design for liv- is not a social barrier. In the 380 pp. New York: Dodd, Mead & ing. These elements made what field of education his solution is Co. $3. he said always interesting even equality of educational advan- By CHARLES E. MERRIAM when unimportant; and it was not tage regardless of social or eco- Professor of Political Science, consistently unimportant. And nomic status. The ways and University of Chicago now in his new encyclopedia the means of such education he does N his eighty-ninth year one of patriarch jauntily summarizes his not undertake to outline, but it the most picturesque figures thoughts on government and is evident that he has the general in English or indeed in modern politics. principle clearly in mind. For social life and letters unfolds In political psychology he him, the result of these measures a scroll of systematic politics catches the meaning of "Vogue" would be, in the long view. the embellished in his own inim- and the values of "Awe." He abolition of classes and a culture itable fashion. Familial relations, feels the significance of art in based on the recognition of genu- educational problems, class struc- politics. ine human equality. tures and their implications, eco- "Let no statesman or elector We must abolish the party nomics, politics, religion, art-all imagine that an artist cannot be system, he goes on to say, though find their place in the range of as dangerous a fool as the labo- he leaves its substitute in a thick his observations and in almost ratory researcher." He dwells at fog, and he would limit the func- 400 pages of artistic writing. length upon the influence of cus- tions of parliaments so that "em- With great consideration for the toms and manners in imposing paneled legislators" and "empan- busy reader he presents also a forms of rule. But in the mana- eled administrators" would carry special chapter "For the Review- gerial aspects of government, on the actual work of govern- ers," and economic, political and such as personnel and fiscal plan- ment, while the "unempaneled religious "summaries" at the end ning, he has little interest except agitator" could have his critical of the volume. And, being George in fiscal manipulation. fling in Commons. Bernard Shaw, he offers his own O Mr. Shaw's economic agenda, estimate of his own work: international organization which were once Marxian-Fabian, "My 'Everybody's What's What' he doubtless knows much but says are not wholly forsaken, but are is only an attempt by a very little-strangely enough in our coldly treated; it is a case of ignorant old man to communicate day. Most of the emerging prob- separation but not divorce. Nor to people still more ignorant than lems of politics indeed are outside is the Russian way received with himself such elementary social the scope of Shaw's hovering, too great enthusiasm, although statics as he has managed to humming-bird type of inquiry. not ignored either. Nothing has pick up by study and collision Not for him are the tougher a chance to work anyway, in his with living persons and hard questions of organization, adjudi- view, until men are better trained facts in the course of a life cation, so disturbing to statesmen and better fitted to assume charge spent largely in discovering and and savants. of their own affairs. His list of correcting the mistakes into Our present political system is economic proposals includes the which his social antecedents and a "group of Anybodies elected by collectivization of land (retaining, surroundings led him." Also, "The Everybody, calling itself Democ- however, "private plots"), the present book, written in my sec- racy." With impartial enthusiasm equalization of incomes of the George Bernard Shaw. ond childhood, is not meant for Shaw attacks both majority rule type noted above, and universal people who want to know how and the rule of the great man as insurance by the government. far political thought can reach; it alike impossible in theory and But socialism is no |longer the Sky Gunners' Story is just a Child's Guide to Politics." unworkable in practice, and he slogan of earlier days-socialism projects some devastating criti- has been "corrupted" nowadays, AIR GUNNER. By Sgt. Bud Hutton ter will do the job for him-di- T is also a book of insights and cisms at democratic institutions. he points out, as all other forms Andy Rooney. 236 pp. New /mensions, atmosphere, smells, of organization inevitably are and York: Farrar and Rinehart. $2.50. sound and small talk: "The roar flashes of intuition, sometimes The root of the difficulties he finds in economics and in educa- must be under our cultural ar- By MEYER BERGER of nine hours of engines hammer- true, sometimes false and some- rangements. ing is still in your ears and it times dubious, but almost always tion. So long as the "distribu- HIS is a series of short pieces interesting. And when he en- tion of labor and of leisure" is A story once circulated to the fills out the sounds the rest of the about American kids who effect that a lady of great beauty gunners make as they scrape counters it, the reader would do corrupt, he believes, all govern- man the guns on Flying Forts said to Mr. Shaw, "What a won- mud from their feet outside the well to have certain#aspects of ment is bound to be corrupt; and and Liberators in the European derful child we might have, with door. You drift off, half asleep, the Shavian career in mind. Long while the educational system is theatre of operations. It is done my beauty and your brains": and because you are too tired this an active worker in the ranks of on its present low level, intelli- factually, without slobbering. The that Mr. Shaw replied, "But what minute to get up and talk and the Fabian Society's version of gence and discrimination cannot writers, former newspaper men, if the child had my beauty and argue and lie with the circle Karl Marx, alongside the Webbs be expected to emerge under any flew with their subjects and lived your brains?" This treatise is a around the stove about the flak and H. G. Wells, Shaw wearied formal system. For these diffi- with them on the ground. They child of art and science, but the and the fighters you have seen of this somewhat as time went culties he proposes two sovereign figure, happily, that the wings offspring has neither the magic this day." on. A friend of the "proleta- the gunners earn in combat are remedies. art nor the heavier gifts of sci- riat," he mingled with the ob- One is equality of income up to ence. It is more like the work enough to sustain them. They do HE writers let you look upon scurantist sets in the domain of not try to superimpose additional the point-in his own phrase- of a great jester, indeed the most the air gunners' reading matter social aristocracy, not too enthu- wings of literary gauze and wordy "of intermarriageability"; that is eminent jester of our time. and tell you coldly that most of siastic about the rights of man. tinsel. the kids won't waste their time He "settled" the Irish question- on paper-in 1917, and is still S The authors are careful to es- HAW, with far less freedom of on anything weightier than Li'l tablish at the outset that gunners Abner, Terry and the Pirates and taking a hand in his own peculiar imagination and inventiveness make up around 60 per cent of comic magazines, even if they way. He has battled for many a than H. G. Wells, belongs to the the personnel that goes out on read Shaw and Proust before they cause on many a field: with the thinkers not bound by formalized bombing missions and that their signed up. They write fairly dull theologians about Jehovah, with law and government. Free from losses run in that proportion. "It letters home "because they try the medicos about vivisection, operating or professional respon- will take some understanding on hard not to talk shop." with the pedagogues about edu- sibility, both Shaw and Wells are your part," they tell the reader, Sprinkled through the book are cation. invaluable, especially to those "to get along with some of the who should but wil not read crisp character sketches. They He is against the ins, but also characters. They live with dan- against the outs, and doubtful of them. Their writings tempt the present the average air gunner, ger, and their reactions may not political scientist to try his wings there is such a thing, and they the doubters too. Yet his own always be what we thought, four in the stratosphere, hoping for a give you the odd fish that turn up ideas, symbols and proposals are or five years ago, to be normal." no more sacrosanct to him than safe landing on friendly territory. not only in bomber gun crews but This is a fair warning. It is an anywhere in life. The work closes those of others, except that he Beside the brilliant essays of even bet that many fathers and Shaw and Wells, the sad and fu- with a typical letter home-the does not see them so clearly or mothers kids so quickly. Unterrified by con- tile pronouncements of von Hayek when they get back. They have kind the gunner leaves at the ventional beliefs or prejudices, and von Mises, recently appear- what seems to be a curious new station before he zooms skyward ing, cast only a lugubrious light slant on life-and on death. If in the pre-dawn, for a fresh en- he strikes out, oscillating uncer- tainly between the role of enfant along a sickly past. Shaw and they went away a little moist counter with death: "** don't terrible and that of soulful en- Wells are iconoclasts, it is true, behind the ears they come back be sad, because the way it's been thusiast for utopias, but always but also men of insight and in- quite dry, and with a certain it's been worth it will have finding easy escape from the vention, pioneers even when they veneer of brittle quality, almost to close now. The fellow just dust of conflict in the home of lose their way, facing the future hard. called that the truck was here. his art. with sincerity and courage, with If your gunner son's letters Thanks for the box of candy and A somewhat insecure audacity, less of lamentations and more of haven't quite described his Nissen the handkerchiefs. Good- Punch. unlimited irreverence, inconsist- "The Pan-Shavian Movement." Revelation. hut in England, the opening chap~ bye. All my love, Donald." BOOK REVIEW, OCTOBER 29, 1944. 3