There is only one bookstore in the real sense of the word in Milwaukee, Des Forges’. Its owner is a bookman of the old type, knows values and authors, has studied his profession in England and France and caters to the collectors and lovers of the printed word.
“The young people don’t care for books,” he told me. “They do not wish to accumulate libraries. The women-folk come in and ask for ‘something nice to read,’ and take my word for it. And on occasion they buy nicely bound books for gift purposes.” Again here, the mysterious powers behind the throne. The books that are featured in movie theatres, in installment novels, and in daily papers are the best sellers.
The New Era Shop, that had recently unpleasant introductions to the police department, endeavors to sell radical literature only. Its proprietors are young and therefore hopeful. They may gain, in the course of years, knowledge of books and then select the right sort of stock. It is not radical to lend out George Moore’s “A Story Teller’s Holyday” for $5 for a reading, because ... well radical does not mean immoral or lascivious. The New Era Shop could inaugurate a new Era for Milwaukee book readers if its proprietors would inform themselves about the sort of books worth while introducing to the public. But even to this shop thanks are due. It may lead to something bigger and better.
The department stores advertise their book departments extensively. Here is the great hunting ground for the Chambers and Chesters and Nick Carters and psalm and hymn books. Rosaries are also carried in these book departments.
The public is not given a chance. David Graham Philips and Susan Lenox have just reached Milwaukee and everybody is excitedly discussing the fall and rise of Susan. Several societies for the uplift of poor working girls have been organized as the direct result of the book.
The theatre buildings are magnificent. Modern, airy buildings with comfortable seats and all new improvements that make the sojourn in a showhouse delightful. But the moving pictures shown are again on the level of newspaper fiction stories, of church sermons and of best-selling novels. The millionaire, who is a villain and becomes an honest working man, the poor woman who marries a millionaire, despite his upstart mother’s protests, the cowboy who “cleans up” a mining camp and kills a dozen rowdies in order to sink exhausted in the arms of his boyhood sweetheart whom he had deserted years ago ... and men, women and children sit through all this.
To have dinners by the light of orange-colored candles while sitting on the floor or on the pillows gracefully grouped about an anaemic poet, who reads ephemeral languid stanzas, belongs to the good taste required in the best circles of Milwaukee.
Smocks and bobbed hair have just made their appearance, and an Art Magazine will soon add the final touches of estheticism.
Small gift shops have been opened by enterprising dealers from Chicago, and there will be food for amusement for years in Milwaukee.
But who will come to this one and to hundreds of other towns and give these good helpless people what they want?