10
THE BATTALION
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TWELVE MEN
By Theodore Dreiser
Reviewed by R. L. Herbert
Theodore Dreiser has been the ob
ject of probably more uncomplimen-
tiil heard. Among these are “On
The Banks Of The Wabash” and
‘Just Tell Them That You Saw
Me,” both of which are still in use
in programs where old favorites are
suitable.
In picturing Dresser, Dreiser pre
sents a good picture of the typical
successful song-writer and actor of
a few years ago, the happy-go-lucky
type of fellow who spends and lends
while he has the money and who is
;he center of admiration while at the
peak of success, but who dies in
want and without friends after his
downfall. “In his day he had been
by turn a novitiate in a Western
Seminary which trained aspirants for
the Catholic priesthood; a singer and
entertainer wnth a perambulating
cure-all troupe or wagon (“Hamlin’s
Wizard Oil”) traveling through Ohio,
ndiana and Illinois; both end and
middle-man with two or three dif
ferent minstrel comnanies of repute;
the editor or originator of a “funny
column” in a Western small city
paper; the author of the songs men
tioned and a hundred others; a black
face monologue artist; a white-face
ditto; a comic lead; co-star and star
in melodramas. “There is little won
der that Dreiser picked him as one
of the characters of his book.”
“Culhane, the solid man” is the
title of a sketch equally as good as
that of Dresser. Picture an Irish
prize-fighter who has come up from
the ranks by virtue of the money
he earned in the ring to the owner
ship of a sanatorium where physical
wrecks of the more intellectual walks
of life come to repair ill-used and
wornout bodies. Realizing that he can
never be the social equal of these
men, he takes particular delight in
showing them their weaknesses and
in ridiculing them, dominating them
in mind and body and subjecting
them to torture, mental and physi
cal, for a period of six weeks. Pic
ture a man who can do this and get
paid six hundred dollars for doing it,
and you have pictured Culhane.
To me Culhane is one of the most
admirable characters in the book,
not because of any characteristic or
because of any virtue the moralists
would admire, but because he takes
the very men, the preachers, teach
ers, lawyers, doctors, etc., who are
supposed to be trying to reform him
and others in his class, and domi
nates them in every way possible.
Theoretically he is to them a “brand
to be snatched from the burning,”
yet they are awed by his very pres
ence and their intellect gains them
nothing in face of his superior will.
It is of sketches of this type that
Twelve Men is composed, sketches of
(Continued on Page 12)
tary and unflattering comments than
any contemporary writer with the
possible exceptions of H. L. Mencken
and Sinclair Lewis, both of whom
have accomplished more than Dreiser !
and have therefore drawn a greater |
amount of adverse criticism from
the critics; literary and pseudo-lit
erary.
“Dreiser is a man with a bad
taste in his mouth and a style of bad
grammar in which to express it,”
an early English instructor of mine
once said. Later he added, “Too much
of Dreiser will make you sick. Only
vomitting will bring relief.”
But if this is Dreiser, and I hearti
ly agreed when I had braved the in
troductory pages of his voluminous
American Tragedy, we have a slight
ly different Dreiser in Twelve Men.
The absence of radicalism and other
Dreiserian characteristics gave me
one of the greatest surprises I have
experienced in recent reading. The
bad taste is, for the most part, miss
ing but the bad grammar is always
present.
Twelve Men is a book of sketches,
presenting twelve men whom, with
possibly one or two exceptions, we
would all delight in knowing. Cer
tainly, if they are in real life as
Dreiser pictures them in his book,
they would be interesting and valua
ble acquaintances for anyone.
Each character in the book is evi
dently a man whom Dreiser has
known during his life, and at least
the majority of them are actual per
sons; men who, because of some
unique characteristic, attracted Dreis
er’s attention. Each of them is a
man who is prompted by the Dreis
erian theory, “Do whatever instinct
and desire prompt.”
It is men of this type who inter
est Dreiser, and from reading the
sketches one would come to the con
clusion that it is only men of this
type who are worthwhile. Dreiser is
a confirmed and confessed enemy of
conventions, and evidently an advo
cate of Butler’s theory that the only
way to live is to enjoy life. Butler
and Dreiser could probably have been
friends had they lived at the same
time and in the same country, al
though Butler would have been
amused and often irritated at many
of Dreiser’s sophomeric ideas and
whims.
Probably the best of the sketches
in the book is that of his brother,
Paul Dresser, song-writer and com
poser a number of yeai’s ago. Dress
er was the author of a number of
songs which were popular a few
years ago and some of which are
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