From Lincoln to Hitler

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24415, 28 September 1940, Page 4

From Lincoln to Hitler

Veteran Journalist’s Reminiscences

Cities and Men. By Inman Barnard. Illustrated (Bles). 19s 6d

“ What changes I have seen in my 90 years—from Abraham Lincoln to Adoll Hitler!” This is the concluding sentence of the autobiography of Inman Barnard, a veteran journalist, and it is a very modest reflection on a career remarkable not only for its length, but for its varied activity. Few men reach Mr Barnard’s age with their mental faculties so little impaired by the passage of time, and fewer still can look back on so full and fascinating a life. Cities and Men is one of the most interesting life stories that have recently reached the public, and Mr Sisley Huddleston, the well-known English journalist, has done a great service by -persuading his old friend to set down these memories and in superintending their publication with such admirable discretion. There is nrobably no other living man who can speak with Mr Barnard’s personal authority of the great figures of the American Civil War, and there must be few who can claim intimate friendship and association with General Gordon, Sir Richard Burton. H. M. Stanley, and a score of others whose names will live. This man is living history; Mr Barnard’s furthest stretch ot memory takes us back to the triumphal tour in America of the great French actress. Rachel. At the age of six he saw her in Racine’s “Phedre” and afterwards was presented to her and rewarded with a kiss. His next salutation from one of the great was a pat on the head by Abraham Lincoln, to whom he confided his ambition to be a policeman. ;l Mv job.” replied Lincoln with a smile. “ night and day, is to try to be a good policeman.” It is characteristic of the author that even at that immature age ho had an impressionable mind and that over the vears there still remains with him a clear-cut vision of these scenes. It was a gift which was developed with the years and was to stand him in good service when he worked in Egypt and in the capitals of Europe as a special correspondent and right-hand man to James Gordon Bennett, the celebrated .proprietor of the New York Herald, the man who sent Stanley to Africa to find Livingstone. Another characteristic, his initiative and independence, was also early developed, for Mr Barnard was in his teens when he packed up his belongings and. without consulting his family, sailed from Boston to Paris on his wav to Egypt, where he had heard, that there were openings for active young men. Egypt was in truth a land of great opportunities in those days, for the Khedive Ismail had embarked on a huge scheme of civil and military renovation and, indeed, dreamed of establishing a new Empire stretching far south into the heart of Africa. Mr Barnard’s hopes were not disappointed. He soon found a position on the Egyptian General Staff and became associated with Sir Richard Burton, ‘‘that

prince of adventurers,” and with General Gordon, “ the Martyr of Khartoum ” —two of the most striking Englishmen of their generation. With both men he enjoyed a long association on terms of the closest intimacy Here are stories of the bitter rival imperial ambitions of the European Powers, and of the fight to put down the vileness and cruellv of the slave trade. It was almost by chance that Mr Barnard wrote some despatches to the New York Herald on Egyptian events but Bennett saw the quality of the man and at the first opportunity secured his services. So commenced the next stage of his career which was to prove even more fascinating. His journalistic work that gave him many contacts with the leading figures of the day, also brought him into strange contact with the great of the past. While in the Valley of the Nile. Mr Barnard saw the unwrapping of the mummv of the princess who is by repute that daughter of the Pharaoh who took Moses from the bulrushes He touched the hand that had lain in shrouds for 3000 years—“ the long, delicate fingers, nails veins and wrinkles were delineated with startling clearness.” But even more fantastic was the time when, in the crypts of the Pantheon in Paris he held the skull of Voltaire in his hand and noted its startling resemblance to Houdon’s marvellous bust. The variety ot this book is inexhaustible, even in an extended review. Mr Barnard knew personally Prince Rudolph of Austria-Hungary, whose life ended tragically at Mayerling. and he has a dramatic chapter on this royal mystery Equally provocative is his chapter describing his visit to the monasteries at Mount Athos where it is persistently rumoured, a Czar of Russia retired to live a life of penitence and prayer after having arranged a mock burial. Then there are glimpse;into the tortuous ways of European diplomacy when the seeds of the disaster of the Great War, and of the present struggle were sown. It, was Mr Barnard who smuggled the private diary of the dying Emperor Frederick from the Potsdam Palace a few hours before the headstrong voung heir William 11. stormily entered his grandfather’s suite and ransacked the desks for it and other secret papers of State. In the character of the new ruler Mr Barnard saw traits that would make trouble, and years later he watched the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, and saw in it another move in “ the tragic cycle of war and peace.” Now, 20 years further on this remarkable man sees Europe again at war as from his then quiet home in southern France, he concludes his tong story with some comments on the situation which reveal a brain as keen as ever. _ D. G, B-

APPEAL TO BOOK-LOVERS THE TRADE’S WAR BURDENS A message to book-lovers in Australia and New Zealand from Mr Geoffrey Faber, of London, president of the Publishers’ Association, -is printed in the latest issue of the Bookseller. “ Few, if any, of those who read these words can have any more urgent prayer in their hearts than that freedom shall prevail against tyranny. Mr Faber says. “To none is the cause ox freedom more close and real than to those who live with books. We British publishers have a double right, now, to appeal to you for all the support you can possibly give to us by buying British books. In the first place our Government has urged us to maintain and increase our export trade, and so to make possible the purchase overseas of essential supplies and munitions of war. In the second place, the more you buy from us the more you enable us to give to our own countrymen and to the whole world a living proof of what freedom really means. “The difficulties we have to face are very great indeed. Costs are rising; paper is scarce: spending power is reduced by ever heavier taxation. We are assured, nevertheless of sufficient paper to carry on. by a Government which recognises the paramount importance of the British book trade We look to you to help, not us. but the cause for. which 'he British Empire is fighting, the cause which so deeply touches you. We ask you not to cavil if our books cost more: it is a very small part of the price to pay for civilisation We ask you. also, not to complain if they become smaller and

thinner than they used to be; these are economies to which the war forces us, and in which you can, and surely will, choose to share. One economy we shall never make nor ask to shareeconomy in the real book, in the printed word itself.”

The Axe of Fascism Lion Feuchlwanger was in a concentration camp in Les Milles, Aix-en-Provence. according to word received by the League of American Writers from France just prior to the capitulation. A report received more recently from France indicates that Mrs Feuchlwanger, too, was taken into custody shortly after her husband’s arrest.