20–13190
This drama of Abraham Lincoln has one purpose: to show Lincoln’s fight to save the Union. We see Lincoln on the one hand as the friend of the oppressed and dispensing pardons according to a deeper sense of justice than is apparent on the surface. On the other hand we see him deal with implacable firmness to carry through his great conviction that the Union must be saved. The whole is divided into a prologue, three acts, and an epilogue.
“Melodramatic and inferior to Drinkwater’s play.”
+ − Booklist 17:61 N ’20
DOBIE, CHARLES CALDWELL. Blood red dawn. *$1.75 (2c) Harper
20–10053
A story of San Francisco following the fortunes of a girl who has her own living and her own way to make in the world. She is in turn a stenographer in a business office, accompanist for a singer at fashionable at-homes and Red cross concerts, and entertainer in a Greek restaurant. The latter occupation takes her “south of Market” and into a new social world where she meets the foreign born and has a glimpse of the alien point of view on American life. Two men have a part in her story, Ned Stillman, descendant of native stock, and Dr Danilo, a Serbian doctor. The war is in progress at the time.
“Although it has merit, it is a rather tepid performance. Mr Dobie’s faults, the faults of the novice, grow less noticeable as he warms to his theme. But he fails to warm sufficiently. He handles all his situations and incidents with the indifferent care of a man following a recipe. In spite of its riotous title, ‘The blood red dawn’ is distressingly smug.” M. A.