Books: In Praise of Fish

THE POLITICIAN: HIS HABITS, OUTCRIES AND PROTECTIVE COLORING—J. H. Wallis—Stokes ($3).

The love of politicians for the flag, the home, motherhood and other sanctified institutions has been a favorite theme of U. S. satirists since Lowell wrote The Biglow Papers. That this particular vein of fun has run thin became apparent last week with the publication of a ponderously humorous volume, patterned on Machiavelli’s The Prince, purporting to bring to aspiring officeseekers the same quality of sagacious instruction, supported by instances drawn from practical politics, that the cynical Italian gave to the despots of his day. A tedious book, overlong, repetitious, The Politician contains a few hilarious examples of Fourth-of-July oratory, gives the general impression that in its composition an agreeably funny idea has been sacrificed for the sake of a stale parody and a secretly serious purpose.

Writing not of politicians by & large, but of such specialized spellbinders as Big Bill Thompson, Tom Heflin, Cole Blease, Smith Brookhart, and Huey Long, Author Wallis’ humor is often dated, with the date somewhere before 1929. And his grave instructions that candidates emulate the more impressive fatuities of eminent statesmen lose much of their sardonic sting when it is noted that most of his examples are chosen from the doings of political has-beens.

The funniest parts of The Politician are consequently the quotations from the politicians themselves: A speech on the protective tariff, delivered by onetime (1925-31) Senator Guy Despard Goff of West Virginia, in which the tariff is pictured as touching hillsides, causing the waters of commercial prosperity to flow, illuminating the valleys, making furnace flames to kiss mountain tops, evoking sweet music from factories, preserving the American home, the schoolhouse and the dignity of labor, turns out in cold type to be so wild a collection of exaggerations and banalities as to make the broadest parody an understatement. The man who most fully exemplifies Author Wallis’ conclusions regarding the proper conduct for a modern politician is Representative Hamilton Fish Jr. of New York. Passing all the tests of viewing with alarm, pointing with pride and gaining unfavorable publicity in the right places, Hamilton Fish Jr. impresses Author Wallis as the ideal candidate except for his Harvard education. He will, says Author Wallis firmly, be the Republican nominee for President before 1948.