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GUIDE TO GOOD READING

First novel establishes high
point in literature of Negro life |

LLOYD D. BROWN’S IRON
CETY is a true and stirring novel.
Its theme is as current as the
latest U.S. Supreme Court ruling
or the newest jimcrow frameup,
and it is as enduring as the strug-
gle of the Negro people for ther
liberation.

Lonnie James is a young Ne-

- gro worker, held in the murder-
ers’ row of a county jail in a
Northern steel district. It might
be Pittsburgh; in the hovel it is
Iron City. A murder has’ been
committed. A criminal must be
found. And to the authorities, one
innocent Negro is as likely a sac-
rifice as another.

In jail, James is an indomitable
figure. Alone, he refuses to sur-
render,
help, just as in court during his
mockery of a trial he defied the
frameup, repudiated his “confes-
sions” and scorned the “defense”
provided him by a court-appoint-
ed counsel. 3

But James is joined in prison
by men who are also the victims
of frameup — Communists, this
time, who are accused of plotting
to “overthrow” the government.
Because capitalism’s jim-crow op-
erates behind bars, too, it is the
three segregated Negro Commu-
nists who first meet James and
launch the defense committee
which ultimately saves him from
death.

All of the action in Iron City
takes place within the confines
of the jail—a grim reminder of
the fact that for the Negro strug-
gling to be free and the worker
seeking to reshape a warped and
twisted society, prison is the
bosses’ ever-present threat.

But it is not the torment of
imprisonment which author Lloyd

writes organizations for

Brown stresses but the abiity of
men to continue the fight for free-
dom inside prison and .even to
reach outside, beyond the walls,
to enlist the help of those still
free. /

The stories of Hayward Pat-
terson and of Willie McGee attest
to the authenticity of Brown’s
fictional portrait of a Lonnie
James. These framed Negroes,
who would not permit the shadow
of the executioner and -the over-
whelming weight of ruling class
power to subdue them, and who
fought back, are true heroes, ial
stories, epics.

In James, the author has given
us a vigorous personality, a young
man of great dignity. Paul Har-
per, Henry Faulcon and Isaac
Zachary are three Negro Com-
munists—all drawn to the party
through their burning desire to
end the subjugation) of their peo-
ple, but each a distinct and dif-
ferent personality. Harper, young
self-conscous about his political
responsibilities; Faulcon, good-
humored and garrulous; Z%ach-
ary, steadfast and a tower of
strength

* os *

WHAT IS important—and what
a-vreader may almost overlook
because it is so natural, right
and proper—is that Brown has
drawn full-dimensional, real, live
Negro characters.

Here he breaks sharply with
the prevailing patterns in U.S.
lterature, which are either to
vilify the Negro .as inferior or
to patronize him as a passive vic-

‘tim of mob violence, as in the

current crop. of “problem” novels
on lynching.
In Iron City we see Negro men

THIS IS CANADA

World Youth Festival will

‘of stature, competenti to work

see new Canadian pageant —

Is IS CANADA—a. pageant

portraying in song, dance and
narration a story of peaceful cre-
ative labor will be presented at
a special concert by the Canadian
delegation to the Third World
Festival of Youth and Students
FOP Heeare.~ -s i

‘Canadian folk songs, original
Eskimo songs and works by the
Canadian composer John Weinz-
-weig will form part of the ‘per-
formance. The work will show
the..first Canadians, Eskimo and
Indian, their life of hunting and
fishing in a cooperative communi-
_ ty, Peaceful agreement with hon-'
or will be symoblized in the tra-
ditional smoking of the peace
pipe. : ,

A scene shows the coming of
the French to Canada from the
fishing villages and farms of Nor-
mandy and Brittany.

The pageant tells of the ¢om- |

“ing of the English and Scottish,
_ Irish and Welsh peoples to Can-
ada, how they settled on the land
and manned the fishing boats on
the rough Atlantic coast and fel-
led the trees from which houses
were built.

“And still they came—from the
great plains of the Ukraine—from
the sunny towns of Italy—from

- Poland and Greece — from the
seafaring peoples of the Scan-
‘dinavian north — from the Ghet-
toes of ‘Europe — and through

_ the famous underground railway
escaping slavery on the planta-
tions of the Southern States.
People came to Canada from

many countries and from all over
the world.” ;
' The miners, who loosed the pre-
cious metals from their deep
beds, are shown as they work. To
_the background of Hold the Fort, |
the scene shows ‘Canada’s workers
in the mills and factories and
shops and offices — “the people
who built our land,” following
the great tradition of Mackenzie,
Riel, and Papineau.’

The ‘narrator describes the
breadth of the youth peace move-
ment telling of the recent actions
of the Catholic young workers
movement of Quebec, the Coordi-
nating Committee of Youth
Groups and the work of the Na-
tional Federation of Labor Youth

in gathering ‘signatures ‘for the

Peace Pact Petition. ;

“Why I Want Peace” will be the
theme of an international cultural
competition for the best’ short
story or poem submitted to World
Festival of Youth and Students.
Deadline for the contest is July
15, 1951. All submissions are to
be sent to International Festival
Committee by ‘this date. Berlin
‘C2, Alexanderplatz, Haus der
Weltjudend : a
- Other contests dedicated to the
theme of peace will be for the best’
photographs or best song. Inter-

national artistic competitions will

be held in folk dancng, choral
work, solo singing, piano: violin:
ballet: folk instruments: violin-—

cello-and wind instruments.
Entrants must not be more than
30 by December 31, 1951.

out their own destiny. Men who
are not to be on. the receiving
end of liberal commiseration, over
the evils of racist violence, but
who, in alliance with white work-
ers can and will triumph.

Iron City is full of tangy prose,
at its best in the author’s dialogue.
There is writing, too, of dramatic
intensity, poetry and beauty.

Outstanding -are the chapter
which tells of Zachary’s fierce,
punishing struggle to become a
railroad engineer, to live his boy-
hood dream in the jimcrow
Southland; the moving funeral
peroration for Harvey Owens,
one-time fellow-prisoner in the
Iron City jail, then a soldier-for-
democracy in the Second World
War, and finally a clay-stained
corpse in a»Georgia ditch, com-

pliments of some “superior” night- .

riding white men; and the pow-
erful episode in which an entire
jailblock’s shouted demand, Turn
That Radio On! for the Joe Louis-
Billy Conn fight becomes a battle

.

in the continuing war against

jimcrow , ‘

There are also weaknesses in
Iron City. I believe the author,
while he describes his Commun-
ists as humane and militant men,
motivated by the yearning to
shake off the bondage of white
rulng class oppregsion, has not
clearly brought out the wider as-
pects of the program for social-
ism and national liberation.

It seemed, too, that a vital ele-
ment in the drama of James as
a fighter for himself—and his
people—was lost because we see
‘him from the first in this light
and do not grasp his growth as
he strikes back against the frame-
up. ‘

The teh ; of: \ “tie da teiaat
for James’ defense is dulled be-
cause, having taken a good first
part of the novel to make a some-
what slow start in the action, the
author hurriedly compressed the
subsequent developments.

- And sometimes the author, in
his desire to describe Commun-
ists in their daily lives and work,
uses terms comprehensible - only
to «militant progressives engaged
in the struggles of the New Deal
era (the novel unfolds during
the period duat preceding the last
war). ,

But these are ‘flaws which ‘are
in themselves a reminder of the
_author’s courage in ‘choosng a
theme which is crucial to our
times. Iron City is a first novel, -
and one indicative of a ‘genpine
talent and a mature comprehen-
sion of the basic political forces
at work in the U.S. In ‘Lloyd is
Brown,: both the Negro people
and ‘progressive working class
America have found a writer to
be welcomed. Masses & Main-
stream, the monthly magazine of
which Brown is the associate edi-
tor, merits deep gratitude for
this, its first venture into ost
publishing. ;

Aside from the pleasure a read-
ing of the novel will give, ts ap-
pearance marks the re-entrance |
into American literature of the

realist’ tradition which is all but —

completely buried in the decadent
output of the day’s “best sellers.”

It is doubly important to note
that it is the Negro people who
here give us a new literary figure
who dedicates himself to a chal-
lenge of the mystical, man-is-evil,
sexually-obsessed literature of de-
cay. ; ;

American fiction. today is
drowning in a murky stream of
reactionary ideas.
tide, a novel such as Iron City is
like the clear water of Ife. }

—ROBERT FRIEDMAN

picture he has ever-done.

Against this _

represents a mood of

‘ADVANCE ON GUERNICA‘

“optimistic determination,” )

Pablo Picasso’s latest work
has direct appeal to all

PICASSO infuriates many peo-
ple who understand his work as
well as most of those who don’t.

Let’s consider the second group
first. ‘

A reader of the London Daily
Worker writes about a picture of

a*faun given by Picasso to the

recent Artists for Peace exhibi-
tion. Basing his judgment of the
artist on this picture, the reader
says that when Picasso “came to
Communism he left his art be-
hind.” The letter continues:

“The picture has no “message
Its_

for the. working masses.
freakishness reflects merely the
hopelessness of a narrow ‘arty’

clique, cut off from the people.

In so far as it has any message
_at all, it is one of cynical with-
drawal from real life.

“We rightly ‘protest against
the American comic strip. We

should “ equally protest. when.

highly talented artists display

works which similarly reflect

only the decay. of capitalism.

Especially when the works mas-

querade as ‘advanced’.”

To speak of Picasso like this is
to ignore practically all the work
that he has done.

J
‘In this particular instance the

-faun ‘itself does not reflect the

decay of capitalism, or decay of
any kind. Picasso’s drawings of

fauns, done about five years ago,
reflect rather his reaction to the _
Hh liberation — of France from the-

Nazis and ‘showed a mood of ex-
uberant optimism,
That mood has now Bagh fused

into one of optimistic determina-
tion.

‘Picasso has reached chis
most positive period.

Bese St
SOME OF HIS latest. work is
on exhibition in Paris. I have be-
fore me. a photograph of what
must be the’ most tremendous
> has It is
called Massacre in Korea.
' This picqure is clearly an ad-
vance on his famous Guernica,
Guernica was loaded with power.

It was fierce with loathing | of |

fascism. It was exciting in its
imagery and ay _its technical

_ mastery.

Massacre in> roared. has all this
and more, It has a direct appeal
to all who’ see it—to those who

‘are used to lookéng at  pictrues

and those who are not. ‘
Gazing at this picture one éan-

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JULY 6, 1951 — cia i

_ tional” art—the making of a Wis

to study works of art. Picasso’

not fail to be moved to disgust
and anger at dollar civilization.
One sees beings in human shé
but conditioned only to the
struction of human: beings who
thinking has become noha
reaction into the order “KII’—
mothers whose bodies are full
life but whose faces are twiste’
in anguish. ,
The message is “only too cl
to those who would like Picas®?
really to be cut off from the
people, the leader of an artisti¢

elite. They: dislike his lat
“period.” ‘They dislike his one
munism. '!

* *

TAKE, FOR instance, AnthoPy
Bertram, editor of a new pees
illustrated booklets on the world’s
masters. He is very sad that
Picasso should. be a Communi hs
For, thinks Bertram, that woul
mean that Picasso had “come: 1G
an end.” : Re
Although _ ey has cleaiy,
knowledge of Communism, he )?*
DG excuse for saying thati
“understands’’ that Picasso’s pic
tures are “banned in Russia”
For, although he would have
take some trouble over Marx; he
could easily ascertain the f:
about the Soviet attitude
‘Picasso. And as an art} critic, B&
has a duty to do so.

.;However, on the understandin€
‘of Picasso, Bertram | “makes :
stimulating remark:

“The difficulty which cert#
people expérience with his work
does not come from their mis-
understanding’ of modern |
but of their milsindensis
ing of ancient art.” ne

The point is that “represent

ness—is | (comparatively new. ‘
understand -early art now, 4
-artist’s message has to be studied:
When such pictures were dom!
they were readily understovd:
people who. ‘shared a comm?
culture with the artist. eee

Picasso is not, of course, en
back to ancient art. He is ahead
of his time. But he is in
great tradition. . He is wor
study.

The pity is that so few people
have the time or the opportuni

doing more than any other a
of our time to see that. they wilt
“have. —JOHN BRIDGER,  ~