rMro0U THE MICHICAN DAILY SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1923
FILE, by Hugh Lofting. Frederick tabaga when the snoox and gringo fix
A. Stokes Company. ($2.0.) it up so that an air car runs over an
B 7 When Carl Sandhurg wrote Chicago air bridge where the steel one has
0KS1 and W riters Poems, years ago, he started some- been washed away on the Shampoo
thing. Some liked it and some River. Some bf 'em, too, live in Iowa,
didn't, and those who didn't set up a Nebraska, Montana, and Walla Walla,
_________________________ Iprodigious yell. Mere was something Washington, hot they try to act like
AN OLD BOOK IN A point. Perhaps some readers wil be , n and devilish under the sun, a the folks in the Village of Cream
shocked by the titles-Telling the common-ordinary guy whose physical Puffs, just as the people in Yellow
NEW FORM Truth, God and Gold, Catastrophe food wastough rolls and coffee try- Grass, Saskatchewan, And Opelousas,
THE'NEW TES8TAMEN1T, AN AMER. and Morals, Mfarriage.and Divorce uing to put the same food across in Louisiana, try to act and dress like
ICAN TEA SLATION, by Edgar J.- Poll-tax and Patriotism., Suchra the spiritual world of poetry. He the people in New York and Paris.
GoodspeedA'(UniLersity od JCscago reader should stop with tietitles' i had no imagination, no delicacy, no The difference is that those who Sand-
Pres, . hesy Cc oesarther hsap t to iscve art; he wouldn't know poetry if he burg writes about make good, while
Press, $3.00). - he goes fartherhe'is apt to discover saw it, and anyhow, he'd never seen those of Yellow Grass do only if the
THE THOMAS JEFFERSON BSLE, that the man who has been set up as any. He didn't even have humor, or crops are good in the years when
Edited by Ifenry Jackson. (Boni & the founder and leader of a very orth- imagination, or anything else that a crops fail every year.
Liveright, $2.50). odox batch of religions was one of poet needed. He couldn't even be__
To those who are accustomed to the most heterodox prophets that ever whimsical,
read the daily papers, it may seem lived. If the teachings of Jesus were Of course, if you want to be crit-
that I am hopelessly behind time in put into actual practice, or even made bthe criticisms didn't affect al, theretareea good manyboners
reviewing the Goodspeed translation widely known, Christianity would die aye din these storiesy-hut the onerstall
of the New Testament, hailed far and of starvation. Imagine the smug gen- Sahure, and mayhe they did, Any- depend on your way of eing critcal
wide as the "Goodspeed Bible". As a temen who put up the cash for John how, a year ago he pulished Rootaa- Some folks say the ig troule is that
matter of fact, the book was officially Timothy Stone's weekly show tolerat- ga Stories, and gave the critics anoth- the book is only 218 pages long; some
published only a week ago today, ing the ideas of a man who had the er jolt. This prosaic, unpoetic rough- others say it's 218 pages too much,
though its newspaper release took affrontery to say, "The kingdon of neck they'd been damning so thor- with the cover thrown in. I don't
place weeks ago. And since I do not God is within you"! How quickly they oughly sudden became more delicate, agree with either of them, yet there
read our two-penny daily contribu- would "view with alarm" the wild more imaginative, more whimsical are some things about it I don't like.
tions to human ignorance, I cannot be bolshevism of the Sermon on the than the best of them. He took slang One place and another Sandhurg for-
reproached for slowness. As a matter Mount! Providing, of course, it were and made it into music; he grabbed a gets himself and springs a sentence
of fact, I feel quite virtuously prompt. put into plain English, and disen- of every-day words and wove or two that comes straight out of
tangled from its surroundings. them into tunes that children dance Grimm's Fairy Tales, and they don't
Nearly everyone, whether he be- Thomas Jefferson had no such to when round-bellied gnomes play quite sitch. And when he talks about
lieves in the Hebrew bible fully, with qualms, and for that reason he com-I their fiddles and jews-harps. He talk- theSooners and the Boomers, and the
reservations, or not at all, is quite piled his Morals, But he did have ed foolishness and made it sound like foolish way they fought each other
willing to admit that we have long sufficient consideration for expedience the wisdom of Aesop; he picked out when they needed to be friends, he's
been in need of a translation of the to keep the compilation strictly to the solemnities of the world and set a little too obvious, and sounds al-
whole of it into the language of himself. This very nearly resulted in them out so every kid could snicker. most as though he was trying to
twentieth-century Americans. It is its loss, as Mr. Jackson tells in the le told of people that nobody ever, preach. And to preach that way about
but logicAl, therefore, that such a first chapter of his general discus- saw, people that were part fairies and fighting wars doesn't do any good;
translation should be attempted, and sion of the document. Other chap- part bone-head humans, made out of people read the stuff and say, "Yes,
that it be attempted first for the New ters deal with the later history of the the desires, the wishes, and the link- that's all right, it's silly to fight and
Testament. In the first place, we of. manuscripts, with Jefferson's motives ings of men. He looked serious, with knock things to pieces, but then free-
today are more interested in that ser- iin preparing it, and its significance as a grin as broad as his face; he spoke do must be preserved, the world
les of documents than we are in the an indication of his attitude toward foolish, and kicked the props from must be made safe for democracy, we
cider section of the Bible. In the sec- religion. All in all, the Jefferson se- under the respectabilities of ages. must have our place in the sun, and
ond, it is appropriate from the very lections, with Mr. Jackson's com- And even his dryest sentences made you've got to lick the other guy first
nature of them that these gospels ments, form a significant book, that poetry. or he'll lick you. So after all, the
shold be put into ordinary language. will occupy a place of honor on my Now we have more doing from Root- only way to keep frox fighting is to
Mark, Luke and John did not write in shelves above that accorded the larg- abaga Land, under the title Rootaha- make war." And there you are.
scholastic Greek comparable to the er work from which the Morals were ga Pigeons. We meet some of the
scholastic English of the King James taken, same people, like Blixie Blimber, and Dr. Dolittle's Postoffice, like Roots-
translation; they wrote as common Potato Face Blind Mao; and some oth- baga Pigeons, is sort of a sequel,
men would write, plainly and w'I er folks-Bozo the Button Buster,. though it is the third instead of the
more attention to substance than to FOR KIDS OF ALL Googler and Gaggler the Two Christ- second. In it we meet the same crew
form and polish. To put the gospels A ESmas Babies, Hot Balloons, Hatrack that Hugh Lofting already has made
into any othe style Is to put themin AGES the Horse, and the Three Wild Baby- famous-Dr. Dolittle, the Pushmi-
a fIs e light, as well as to m ke them lonian Baboons that Went Away in pilyu, Dab-Dab the duck, the dog, the
food for those who are more desirous ROOTAJIAGA PIGEONS, by Carl the Rain Eating Bread and' Butter. pig, the owl, and the white mouse.
of fine words than of fine thoughts. Sandburg. Harcourt, Brace & Co. Most of them live in Rootbaga Land, At the request of the pushmi-pully
There is many a good Christian who ($2.00) ibut some of them hang out in neigh- Dr. Dolitte snakes a voyage to Africa,
can repeat the words of Paul without DOCTOR IORITTLES POST OF. boring countries and commute to Roo- (Continued on Page Five) '
an inklfini of his meaning.
For honest Christians, therefore, as-
well as for the minority of us who
conceive ourselves honest even though
we subscribe to no faith, Dr. Good-aour f
desiedIt s witte an prnte as nide aand Yourfutre ste most interest-
speed's book comes as something long
desired.' It is'written'and printed at; ing and vtal one in the world and
are the books we are accustomed to
read; its words and phrases are those' ( ie jat s alo th rf tng:h ty u
which we know and fully understand. est it is altogether fitting that you
There is no hocus-pocus, no Eddyism
of parroted phrases about it. What should consider it seriously at this
could be more straightforward than
this; N o time of your life.
"I tell you, any man who does noto Tt f u e
enter into the sheepfold by the door,
but clinibs over at some other place,
is a thief and a robber. But the man If you to the s
who enters by the door is thl shep-
herd of the flock. . . . When hea
gets his own flock all out, he goesain ards by which your success will be
front of them, and the sheep follow measured will in a large degree
him, because they know his\ voice
Bmut they will never fo ow a trang- be eas redtheofn
er, . . . because they do not know be measured by the size of your
the voices of strangers.ba k cou t
". . elyou,.I 'at the door n account.
of thq sheepfold. All who have come
befo e me are thieves and robbers,
but the sheep would not obey them.
I am the door." Begin now to take steps to insure.
In this language I can understandS et
and even admire Joshua, called Jesus its success. a e rom
of Nazareth,
o u cwhatever income you have. The
However, much as I welcome the
Goodspeed version of the New'Tests.-
"n~fitit 322habit'will grow easier as time goes
ment, It possesses no such attractions a i, l gfj ,a -e°a i eg e
as does the Thomas Jefferson Bible. n and ou and wll e able
Perhaps this is because I am more on y yours be
than a little lazy, and the 481 pages of
Goodspeed tire me while the 24 to be md&pendentwhen you are
(there are 86 extra than do notcount)t bnn

in Mr. Jackson's edition of JeffersonI forty.
do not. Also, there is much in Good-
speed which reason, the German crit-
ics, and Professor Shirley Jackson.1 I
Case tell me has no dem hstrable con-i
nection' with 'the actual statements"
and opinions of Jesus. All this is
absent in The Jefferson Bible, to jAra S
whieh Jeffersoni himself gav the,
na e The Morals of Jesus. In it, too, jj UNIVERSITY AV U.BR NC
passages are arranged with definite
relation to one another; they are easy
to and, short, and very much to the_