By HARRIET
STONE

CRE AM I, by class a re-

spectable man, by common
sense a hater of waste and
rder, by intellectual con-
stitution legally minded to
the verge of pedantry, and by
temperament apprehensive and
economically disposed to the
limit of old-maidishness; yet
I am, and have always been
and shall now always be a
Terao cy because
law impossible;
Seietiees all free-
our property is orgaz
ized robbery; our mortality i
an impudent hypocrisy; our
wisdom is administered by in-
lenced or tnal-expert:

dupes, our
1 by cowards and weak-
1 our honor false in
all its points.
am an enemy
order for

writer,

of the
7
good

reason
When George Bernard
Shaw wrote that political self-
portrait in the preface to his
play Major Barbara he had
already served the first 20 of
what was to be a 70-year
stretch as a consciously revolu-
tionary writer. His aim was
to rouse the people of Britain
to liberate themselves from the
capitalist system by substitu-
entific soc TY
He found it hard to com-
attention in the first
and to make himself
rstood in the second. The
] style of
known = as

who nis

y apes today face the same

ahh acles, a little study of
Shaw style—in particular his
humor — should be time well
snd pleasantly spent.

The eines anniversary of his

birth — July 26, 1856 — could
be Saha S in. no way of
which Shaw would more

rove than by re-
i re lishing some of
his better political ‘

To chssect a joke - is ates
but it many help the
os ‘. place the following
cerpts back in the context
which they are torn, to
observe that irony is always

>;
we

surely apy

the statement of the opposite
what is intended. When

a character “pre
when he himself
— something

is because “he
ring about exactly

*

y: (In On the Rocks)
Marx—Karl Marx
n now — my
him. well—thought
that when he’d explained the
C ipitalist system to the work-

Hipn

“Old

they call

i cle of Europe they’d
unite and overthrow it, Fifty
years a he found his Red
Int mal, the working

classes of Europe rose up and
s one another down and
one another to bits :
if Dr. Marx. had never
And a = do it

ain tomorrow if they was set
on to Ho sag
of Shaw’s political

many wild absur-

ri THEGE eal ali

Shaw: sage
for Socialism

dities of our existing social or-
der perhaps the most grotes-
que is the costly and strictly
enforced reservation of large
tracts of country as deer forests

and breeding grounds _ for
pheasants whilst there is so
little provision of the kind
made for children. I have more
than once thought of trying to
introduce the shooting of
children as a sport, as the
children would then be pre-
served very carefully for 10
months in the year, thereby
reducing their death rate far
more than the fusillade of
the sportsmen during the other
two would raise it.”

The apove is, of course, some-
thing like Swift’s equally sav-
age proposal that the starving

7 eae sf madd

rT Trl eee

Irish of his day eat
children. But there is a great
difference between Swift and
Shaw.

One way to state it is that
Shaw did not ever really des-
pair of his fellowman; did rot
even dislike him, taking one
at a time. His irony could
slash, but never sat‘Someone in
particular. While no one was
sacred — proletarian or prime
minister- — no one was his
personal enemy. He could al-
Wéys infuriate- but never in-
sult.

Swift was moved by the
same sort of social indigna-
tion but he disliked most
people as individuals, and he
frequently despaired of them
in the mass. He had few

their..

crete eee || |

friends and many enemies, and
while he could write satirical
political fables as great as
Gulliver’s Travels, he could
never have created the chara-
cters of a play like St. Joan,
or Major Barbara, or Pygmal-

ion.
*

Many of Shaw’s contempor-
aries — even his colleagues in
the Fabian Society—came to
helieve that his style with its
outrageous overstatements,,
its impudences—was simply
an attempt to command a hear-
ing, like playing a brass band
in Hyde Park to attract an
audience,

Now Shaw did more than
his share of speaking on soap-

bexes in Hyde Pa
as on the platfor:
provincial working
debating society—for
and he knew the_
brass band. But his
with the problem °®
was just as impor
formulation of his $Y
use of shock to ca

The second docu
socialism ever issue
Fabian Society, ™
jeined when it |
months old and hé
years old, contains M™
ing typically Shavla
“formulations”

“The most striking.
our present system
out the national land?
tal to private indivié
been the division of 8®
hostile classes, with :
petites and no dinn@®
extreme, and _ largé
and no appetites at

“When you sugg®
people that the apP* 7,
communism to the "je,
ply is only-an extels,.
c{ its application
lighting, they are bewy

more about the Eng 66
than Marx (and @
English economics “mp:
Shaw counselled a c
old doctor’s” road
secialism “because th :
the parliamentary P@ te;
be explored to its Uigy
breaking point in 149
anyone would liste?
revolutionary prop") (
But meanwhile 1°
more murderous ati
to the illusions of
formers fed. ’ 2
“When the Soci@
ment in London 109i]
from lovers of art C
ature who . . . hadJer
regard tramps ‘as sd Cy
passionate High €
clergymen who adol
tramps like St. an €
apt to assume that 440
needed was to. tea ie |
to the masses (vas¥eNc
ined as a huge crow@ are
like saints) and tO “Ms
rest to the natura
sowing the good see!
virgin soil.
“The established 8°rifilc
has no more right 1 Je |
the. state than they

London has to ca™ Qe
weather.” gent

Compare this with? ;
statement of polit j

contemporary- parlY jad
ing socialism of a0 jgth
you will get som Tt
Shaw’s calibre as at :

And note that i” jer

all his agitational Wi gSu
insisted on explaifl a

persuading in chal@y F
ly British terms—
istics, British refere™

to)
ish colloquialisms. i m :
“Most people WY) iy :
‘“ €
he wrote once, ie

ism is known only rf nd
country as a visiont TI
advocated by 4 l
amiable cranks. The? st
stroll off across ive
bridge, along the CM Mus
bankment, by the ig with
common gas light § a
on the just and the ae

atin

(Continued on B& 7

August 3, 1956 —PACIFIC TRIBUNE