GUIDE TO GOOD READING

e

New Fast novel stirring story

of distorted facet of history

IN HIS NEW novel, The Proud
and the Free (Little, Brown),
Howard Fast returns once again
to the story of America’s becom-
ing, to the years and the struggles
whose meaning he has captured
as has no other novelist. Like
Freedom Road, Last Frontier and
The Unvanquished, like all his
historical novels which have illu-
minated important chapters in the
American story kept dark and hid-
den by the official chroniclers.
The Proud and the Free restores
a hitherto withheld portion of the
people’s: heritage.

The history books will tell you
in a footnote, if they tell you at
all, of a “mutiny” by the men of
a Pennsylvania’ regiment in the
early days of 1781. They will very
quickly pass over the men’s grie-:
vances, enlarge upon the soldiers’
“arrogance” to their officers and,
like one historian, describe the
whole affair as the “low point”
of the American Revolution.

It is this incident which How-
ard Fast restores to its proper
place as one phase in the never-
ending struggle of the American
working people for their freedom.

There must be many such “foot-
notes” to American history, clash-
es between people and rulers
whose anti-democratic interpreta-
tion has been frozen into accep-
ted legend through generations of
repetition,

But the legend of the “mutin-
ous, arrogant” soldiers of the
Pennsylvania Line is shattered in
Howard Fast’s stirring narrative.

; * * *

THE MEN of the Pennsylvania
Line had fought at New York,
White Plains, Trenton, Monmouth
and Stony Point. They had en-
dured cold and hunger, not be-
eause they were ordered to or
because they were well-paid, but
because they sought freedom.

“And to one such as Jamie Stu-
art, Howard Fast’s hero, whose
parents were indentured servants,
bought and paid for, and whose

own early life was one of arduous

servitude, freedom was a dream
encompassing more than the Sev-
ering of ties with England.

—an ironic word in a nation then
still in. the making—the Penn-
sylvania forces included Scots-
men and Irishmen, British deser-
ters from King George’s army,
Negroes and Jews, Poles and Ger-

“mans,

HOWARD FAST

It is through young Jamie Stu-
art, that Fast tells the story of
the Pennsylvania Line. Regi-
ments composed of “foreigners”
—an ironic word in a nation then
still in the making—the Pennsyl-
vania forces included Scotsmen
and Irishmen, British deserters
from King George’s army, Negroes

* and Jews, Poles and Germans.

It was not that they were not
paid, not that they were disci-
plined, not that they bled and suf-
fered which embittered Jamie
Stuart and ‘his fellows, but fhat
their gentry-officers caroused and
lived well meanwhile, that they

rotected the Tory landlords of
their own class, yet whipped and

hanged the volunteer Revolutio- ;
-nary soldiery for petty infractions

of the rules.

Out of this exploded the move-
ments of the Committee of Ser- |
geants which, backed by the men,
ousted the officers and resisting
both the latter’s threats and the
bribes. of the British, marched in-
tact from Morristown to Prince-
ton.

The revolt flared briefly, ended

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with the officers offering substan-
tial compromise, including pay-
ment of the soldiers, discharge of
those who’d been kept beyond
their enlistment terms and — no
reprisals. The first two bargains
were kept, but the gentry vindic-
tively violated the last pledge onge
the men of the Line had restored
the -officers to their former posi-
tions.
* “ *

ONE OF THE most dramatic
chapters in The Proud and the
Free, in which Fast demonstrates,
not only his narrative skills but
his mastery of the complex poli-
tical and economic strands in the
fabric of the American Revolu-
tion, is that which tells of the sec-
ond, abortive rebellion among the
men of the Pennsylvania Line,

In this tension-ridden moment,
wherein certain officers brutally
provoked a handful of soldiers to
defiance, Fast contrasts the true
dedication of the men of the Line
to the Revolution with the venge-
fulness of their leaders. For, bit-
ter and grieving though they were
at this new attack upon their com-
rades, the regiment did not Sain
because tomorrow they were
march south to Yorktown, to me
final battle, because the Revolu-
tionary cause could not now be
imperilled,

The Proud and the Free, ob-
tainable here at the People’s Co-
operative Bookstore, 337 West
Pender, begins and ends with the
narrator, a now-aged Jamie Stu.
art, aiding the new rebels, the
abolitionists.

It was on the-road to Yorktown
that Jamie was told:

“We are like a seed that rip-
ened too soon, too quick, for we
were planted within the gentry’s
own revolt, and we grew a crop
they fear mightily and neither
they nor we knew how to har-
vest it. That will take knowing,
Jamie Stuart, that will take
learning. Be patient. The voi-
ces are quiet this moment, but

they will rise again. Be patient.”

* * *

Howard Fast has stripped the
bourgeois trimmings from the
story of the plain and simple men
of the Pennsylvania Line.

viewed it truthfully, from the

perspective of an artist of the

working-class, and he has there-
fore made it possible for the rea-
der to understand as one phase
in the continuing struggle for so-

cial and economic liberation an.

incident hitherto left baffling or
unexplained by pouneenls apolo-
gists.

There is a deep rrentaore in

the fact that this tribute to the

men who made the Revolution—
and America—should have been
written by one who has just spent
three months in jail upon the or-
der of the present-day Tories who
dare to revile Howard Fast as
“un-American”,

—ROBERT FRIEDMAN.

Be

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5288 |

“Everything in Flowers’
FROM...

EARL SYKES

56 E. Hastings St. PA. 3855
Vancouver, B.C.

He has .

Peace play

A new three act play, “But Ye
Are The Peopie”’, by Vancouver
writer Hal Griffin (above) will be
presented by . the Vancouver
Theatre of Action at Clinton Hall
this coming Sunday, October 22,
8 p.m., as a feature of the an-
nual Vancouver Book Fair, which
opens at Pender Auditorium this
Friday evening.

CAPSULE REVIEW
Science-fiction
hits the screen

DESTINATION MOON.
The growing science-fiction

craze, growing out of A-bomb un-.
easiness, will reflect itself on the

screen in many exemplars, of
which this is just the first. . Kid
stuff and not very exciting at that.

THE FLAME AND THE ARROW
Burt Lancaster.

A 12th ceriury adventure yarn
that has something of the enjoy-
ment of Douglas Fairbanks Sr.’s
early films. _ Enjoyable as escape
stuff, \ ¥ -
OUR VERY OWN, Ann Blyth,
Farley Granger.

Psychological problems within

a “typical” U.S. family, handled on

a stereotyped level. _ Glossy and
meaningless.

711 OCEAN DRIVE.

Would-be expose of the pet

ling syndicates which doesn’t live
up to its advance publicity. Petty

. Stuff.
SSOOSSSSSOSSS
%

jon, quoting:

BOOK FAIR SPECIALS
Obfainable af Book Fair

FILM SHELVED

Hollywood sees
‘peace danger’
in ‘Hiawatha’

HOLLYWOOD has decided to
shelve a film on Hiawatha, In-
dian chieftain who united the
Five Nations into a confederation
'the fifteenth
century. The reason offered is.
that
peace,

against war in

since Hiawatha was for

the film would be very

‘helpful to present Communist
designs.” ;
Somebody who favors. war

could find lots to fear in that
comments the UE News,
organ of the United Electrical
Radio and Machine Workers Un-

poem,”

I have given you Streams to
fish in,
I have given you bread. ‘and
. bison,
I have given you roe and rein-
deer,
I have given
beaver,
Filled the marshes full of wild -
fowl,
Filled the rivers full of fishes;
Why then are you Hed con-
tented?
Why then will you hunt each
other?
“Tam weary of your quarrels,
Weary of your wars and blood- |
shed,
Weary of your prayers for ven-
geance, :
Of your wranglings and dis- .
sensions
All your strength is in your
union, ;
All your danger is in discord;
Therefore be at peace hence-
forward,
‘And as brothers live together,
Wash the war-paint from your

you brant and

faces,

Wash the ploodstains from your
finger's, ;

Bury your war-clubs and your
weapons,

Break the red stone from this.
quarry,

Mould and make it into Peace-
mines... =

EAST END

TAXI

UNION DRIVERS

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0334

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LOWER HALL - PENDER AUDITORIUM

Friday Evening, October 20
Saturday Afternoon, October 21

Kalinin on Communist Education _....0.00........... $ .49
Rothstein’ = "“Historyiof U;S:SiRY eos 49
Truth About Unions - Huberman _... ow... 35
Out of Your Pocket - Story of Cartels ............ “30.

Canada - Communist Viewpoint - Tim Buck
Inside Job - Trotskyism Exposed
Maxim Gorki - Vol. No. 2 (3 complete novels) .... 2.00
Marx-Engels-Selected Works Vol. No. 2
Materialism & Empirio Criticism - Lenin _.. 1.00
A Story About a Real Man - Néw Soviet Novel .... 1.00
New Data on Lenin Imperialism
Documents on Korea ....... ee ea See ae) 25

Our Lives - An Anthology og Good Labor Stories 1.50
Soviet Psychiatry - Regular $6.00 Pag AS

Many Other Books on Sale at the FAIR
SPECIAL SALE OF CHILDREN’S BOOKS
SEND MAIL ORDERS TO

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337 hed Pender St. - Vancouver