This is the way it was for Ame

ricans in Havana before the revolution.

CUBA: a novel before...

FLUSH TIMES, by We
ren Miller, Published by
Miller, Brown & Co. Avail-
able at People’s Co-op Book
Store, 341 W. Pender.

Bees MORE than any
other prose writer, Warren
Miller is preoccupied with the
Cuban revolution’s meaning
for Americans. First, in Nine-
ty Miles From Home, he at-
tempted to convey the essence
and flavor of Cuba by means
of mixed reportage and fan-
tasy. Though often acuie and
funny, that volume was
rather disfuse and, I believe.
not successful as a whole.
His novel Flush Times
works much better. The rea-
Son, I think, is that Miller fo-
Cuses on Cuba through the
person of a single American,
a hero with whom we sympa-
thize and whom we under-
Stand as he blunders down to
Cuba and into the revolution.

What in Ninety Miles From
Home was merely reported
- with more or less tiair is i
this case experienced by Juxua-

than Weller, whose itlook
interprets the revolution.
Weller is a young New
Yorker who finds no purpose
to his life, either in his occu-
pation of drawing TV cartoon
ads or in his family record of
enterpreneurial achievement.

The ancestral example
merely increases his sense of
futility. Jonathan’s pregnant
wife leaves him. Intent on di-
vorce, she goes to Cuba for an
abortion. Jonat!.7 goes along
hoping to dissuaie her. The
time is a few months before
Batista’s downfall.

The abortion completed and
the divorce transacted, the
abandoned Jonathan is left to
drift into the distractions of
Havana emigre life.

The discards of other de-

clined civilizations already
live here; so does a writer
strongly suggestive of Hem-
ingway, who talks tough but
hasn’t the nerve to write of
the revolution when it comes.

Letters from home tell Jon-
athan of ‘apathy at the grass
roots, inertia in high places,

standees at the bar.” “Are we

too old and tired to rouse our-

sels +d join the dance?” he

asi self.
*& a i

Ile takes up a charming Fi-
delista of mixed blood. When
the Batista police brutally kill
her Jonathan’s reaction is
wholly personal: he feels his
last chance for a new life and
for having children has been
taken from him, and he be-
comes literally impotent.

We see little of the revolu-
tion as it comes to power,
only what Jonathan sees: two
thin bodies in a_ gutter; a
young man who stores gren-
ades in Jonathan’s cupboards;
the militant girl who is killed.

The spiritual exhaustion of
Jonathan and America remain
the focus. Jonathan is barred
by his national origins from
participating in revolutionary
vitality. At best he can live
out an absurd existence
against its background.

His lassitude and death, so
devoid of. significance and
‘dignity, say a good deal about
what America has become
and where it may go..

—LEE BAXANDALL

...atale of the present

aul Rodriguez was selected as

the most valuable worker in
the paper and pasteboard industry
of Cuba for the year 1962.

Raul had been ‘‘on his’ own’’
Most of his life. “Por la libre’ —
as the Cubans say graphically
Mm Spanish. Raul glued a leg of
a chair here and a drawer there,
4s the years piled up on him.

As he came across various kinds
of wood and other materials that
Were given to him to put together,
he experimented with different
Kinds of glues until he developed
Some paste formulas that he could
Claim as the product of his vast
€xperiments and experience.

* * *
Raul was not old, but neither

Can it be said he was young any
More.

~~ WORTH
_ READING

Silent Spring, by Rachel Car-
Son. Price $5.95.
For as long as man has dwelled
co this planet, spring has been
Ne season of rebirth, and the
Singing of birds.
het now, in some parts of
pao spring is strangely
: ent, for many of the birds are
ch — incidental victims of our
“less attempt to control our
ee cumin by the use of chemi-
; ey that poison not only the in-
Ex S against which they are di-
ected but the birds in the air,
€ fish in the rivers, the earth
Which Supplies our food, and in.
Vitably, man himself.

ee

é«

In the meantime he heard that
in the paper and eardboard fac-
tory _where millions of _ card-
board containers, CUPS and
paper bags were being made,
they were having trouble with
glueing these products so that
each of these articles of daily
necessity for holding liquids and
foods would not come. apart in
the hands of the buyer.

* * *

The special glue used in the
container and bag industry used
to be imported from the U.S. at
36 cents a pound. This Cuban in-
dustry used to spend $80,090 a
year for the special glue needed.

At the beginning of 1962, the
glue which had been stored up
for years when importation from
the U.S. was still possible, be-
gan to give out.

Raul applied for a job in one
of the paper products factories.
For the first time in his life he
was part of a team. The itiner-
ant furniture mender was trans-
formed into a factory worker.

Raul tride to solve the number
one problem of the industry: a
product that would be an ade-
quate substitute for the fast-
diminishing U.S. glue without
which no containers and many
other paper and cardboard ar-
ticles could be made.

® * *

It had to be a glue that could
dry almost instantly, keeping
pace with the high speed of the
machines through which the paper
and cardboard material was pass-
ing. At the same time, the glue
had to seal the paper or card.
board permanently.

Raul brought to bear all his

ios — s ae Skok

long experience of working with
all kinds of pastes ;and glues;
soon he discovered the exact
kind of glue that was needeed.
And he did it with ingredients
that could be produced in_ his
native Cuba, at a cost of 13 cents ©
a pound instead of the 36 cents a
pound paid to the Yankee traders.
When asked how the formula
for the new glue was found, Rau!
answered modestly: “It was all
done through collective work. We
all made many experiments.
Everybody came with new ideas.
I was amazed. I was working
there only a few days, and I felt
as if I had known my fellow-

workers all my life.”

: * * *

At the factory affair, Che
Guevara, Minister of Industry,

presented Raul Rodriguez with
a diploma. ~

“When J received. the diploma,”
Raul said, “I felt one of the great
emotions of my life. I lived
through so much misery. insults
and exploitation before the revolu-
tion that I could not really be-
lieve my eyes—all these honors
that were being conferred upon
me.”

Now Raul Rodriguez is being
sent to the Soviet Union and
Czechoslovakia. _

“What will you do there?’’ Raul
was asked.

“Rist, I will try to see and
know more about those brother
countries that have helped us
so much. And secondly, I will
visit some of the paper, card.
board and glue. factories to ac-
quite more knowledge that I
can use when I come back.”

: -—JESUS COLON

ee

At a U.S. sit-in

A. NOON in the staid old
rotunda of Califernia’s Capi-

tol building the young people join-
ed hands under the battle flags
of the state’s Civil War regiments,
faced the polished balustrade and
sang, ‘‘We shall overcome one
aay.

Legislators and lobbyists, caught
up in the traditional closing rush
of a legislative session that was
to end June 21, paid little atten-
tion to the group, which—in vary-
ing numbers—had been sitting-
in since May 29.

Yet the cause that brought these
members of the Congress of Ra-
cial Equality (CORE) here was
perhaps the hottest issue before
this somewhat lacklustre session

the fate of Assemblyman
William Byron Rumford’s fair
housing bill was still very much
in doubt. But win or lose, the sit-
inners had left their mark upon
Sacremento.

* * *

“No matter what happens,”’ said
Danny Gray, first vice-president
of Los Angeles CORE, ‘“‘this dem-
onstration in itself is a victory
for us.”

The Negro freedom movement
had pierced the protective armor
of ritual and tradition by which
legislators and lobbyists attempt
to insulate themselves from the
public.

There was the day (June 11)
when—to the vast interest of the
hundreds of stenographers work-
ing in the Capitol—screen stars

‘Marlon Brando and Paul New-

man had visited the sit-ins.

Brando touched on what was
new about all this when he said
he had come ‘“‘to assist the Negro
in doing something we should
have done in the first place.”

One of the children, a girl in

the fifth grade, said, “I didn’t
like sleeping here, but I think
it’s very important, and I'll re-
port about it in school.”

A young woman from San Fran-
cisco said, ‘I’ve been up here
three weekends. I can’t stay dur-
ing the week because of my job.
I am just tired of the old ways
of discrimination and not having
the chance to a decent life.”

A young man volunteered, “Ne-
groes should be able to buy homes
if they can pay for them. We
are tired of living in ghettoes.”’

oo * *

These were the kind of people
who, on June 15, were dragged
forcibly from the entrance to
the state senate chambers by
state police when they staged a
lie-down at the doors in protest
against senate inaction on the
housing bill.

There were sneers from legis-
lators and lobbyists. Sen Luther
Gibson (Democrat Vallejo
County), the man most responsi-
ble for delaying the fair housing
bill, barked, “I don’t care what
they do. They’re nitwits.”

But the demonstrators sitting
on limp air mattresses on the
cold floor continued to talk about
the struggles in the South, about
man’s moral responsibilities,
about the frustration of being un-
able to get a job.

“All we want,” said one, “‘is
to make our country a decent
place in which to live.”

—MARGRIT PITTMAN

Ed. Note: The fair housing
bill {sponsored by Assembly-
man. William _Byron _Rum-
ford) referred to above, has
subsequently been passed by
the State Legislature of Cali-
fornia — six minutes before
the deadline which closed the
legislative session).

Screen stars Marlon Brando (kneeling, left) and Paul New-
man (seated against the railing) chat with Congress of Racial
Equality sit-inners in arotundaof the state Capitol in Sacra-

mento, California.

Books for summer reading

ummer is a time for catching
S up on reading and re-reading
books. The following inexpensive
paperbacks are ideal campanions
in a cool shady spot during these
hot summer days.

There is “Over Prairie Trails’
($1) and ‘‘Master of the Mill”
($1.25). Both are high spots in
Canadian writing by Frederick
Phillip Grove.

A variety of titles by Stephen
Leacock and Gabrielle Ray make
for pleasant reading at $1 and
$1.25 a copy.

“King Leopold’s Soliloquy” by
Mark Twain ($1.25), “‘The Rise
and Fall of the Third Reich’ by
Wm. Shirer ($1.65), ‘“‘The Alder-
son Story’’ by Elizabeth Gurley
Flynn ($1.80) and the popular
story about Dr. Norman Bethune
“The Scalpel, The Sword” ‘by Ted
Allan and Sydney Gordon (98c)

ee

.by Pushkin,

can add many a pleasant hour to
your summer.

For the energetic vacationer
there are folk-song and labor-song
books to loosen up and relax
with. Take your pick: the Lead-
belly Song-book ($2.15) ,‘‘Favorite
American Ballads’’ by Pete Seeg-
er ($2.15), ‘Songs of Work and
Freedom”’ by Edith Fowke and
Joe Glazer ($3.50), ““Negro Songs
From Alabama’’ and many more.

If you like getting your nose
into classics, there’s “The Be-
witched Tailor’ by Sholem Aleich-
em ($1.25), or any of the books
Gogol, Chekhov,
Shakespeare and others, are read-
ily available.

Sixty-four varieties of edi-
ble mushrooms have been ap-
proved for marketing by
Czechoslovakia’s health min-
istry.

"July 12, 1963--RACIHGTRIBUNEPage 5