Among the Literati

Richard Walsh, president of the John Day Co., will not bring out the speeches delivered by Hitler since his ascension to the chancellorship of Germany. The grey-haired dignified publisher arrived at his decision without any aid from the professional suppressors who tried so hard to make “My Battle” a best seller. The element that turned the scales against the Hitler oratorical efforts was the discovery made by the John Day editors that all anti-Semitic remarks had been carefully and thoroughly eliminated from the manuscript. Mr. Walsh is not an anti-Semite, he is a fair-minded and ethical publisher who felt that to publish these speeches without the anti-Semitic references would be to present Hitler to the American public in a false light. The propaganda experts of the German regime realized that Hitler’s ideas about Jews were not conducive to the creation of good-will towards Adolf in this country. They thought they were being very clever in doctoring the speeches. Fortunately, Mr. Walsh saw through their plan. The chances that some other publisher will take the book are slim. The only way they will get between covers will be if one of the Nazi organizations over here grind them out on their presses.

Because the managing editor of his paper was a rabid book hoarder, one of the most prominent literary editors in the East on one of the largest papers in the country is out of a job after five years of daily book reviewing. It seems that for the past three years the managing editor has been under the spell of a book complex. Every book sent to the literary editor for review was promptly claimed by the m. c. for his own library. He even insisted that if a publisher sent advance galley proofs the book could not be reviewed until the finished copy was received and turned over to him. The literary editor was willing to do this but when the m. e. insisted upon making outside reviewers who did an occasional review for the paper, return the books, the literary editor complained. The m. e. paid no attention to the protest. In desperation the literary gent wrote to the owner of the paper. Four days later the literary editor was handed a letter containing his dismissal and an order never to appear in the newspaper office again. A few days after the dismissal publishers received a letter signed by the m. e., asking them to send all review copies to him.

Mr. Norman Burnstine who left not long ago the intellectual and genteel atmosphere of a moving picture company’s office to enter the harsh world of book publishing, does not like our paper and is particularly disgusted with the “spiteful jackass” who writes this column. However, Mr. Burnstine suggests that we can best combat Hitlerism in America by distributing “fifty million copies of Ernst Henri’s article in the November Living Age titled ‘The Man Behind Hitler’.”

The man behind Hitler as Henri sees it, is a gentleman named Thyssen, head of the Steel Trust in Germany. He is said to have given financial aid to Hitler and was able through his money to keep the Nazi movement alive in its darkest days. Thyssen is not primarily interested in Hitler but he would welcome a nice war, it would be fine for the steel business. And as Hitler is under great obligation to him it is believed that the least he can do for his benefactor is to start the cannons roaring. Distributing such an article might help dispel the idea that Hitler’s actions are based entirely on his fanatic devotion to his ideals.

Incidentally Mr. Burnstine in a strangely composed letter, especially since it is written by an employee of a publisher who has recently gone in for the “finer things”, states, “I might ask… why you allow such a spiteful jackass as (me) to drool his ignorant venom across your already inadequate pages.” His communication reads very much like the stuff sent to tabloids and printed under such a head as “The Voice of the People.” And by the way I really don’t drool! to undertake the business of raising the money to finance such a project, he can be sure of our enthusiastic support.