CRIMSON BOOKSHELF

HERE, in lithograph and concise chronicle, is the story of John Reed, playboy, poet, and hero of present-day U. S. radicals. It is a thrilling and intensely interesting story.

Harvard 1910

John Reed came to Harvard from Portland, Oregon, and graduated with the Class of 1910. He took a normal, fashionable part in college activities, made the Lampoon, was cut from the CRIMSON, was head cheerleader during the football season of 1909, wrote the Pudding show, and consumed champagne and caviar at some of the best Boston deb parties. He went to New York, fell under the wing of Lincoln Steffens, became interested in the plight of labor, organized a gigantic labor pageant, was jailed for radical activities. Went to Mexico as war correspondent, made friends with Pancho Villa, saw the smoking ruins of the homes of Colorado laborers, went to Europe to cover the news of the War there. He warned against America's entrance, got himself known as a radical for it, was indicted on scores of counts in America after he went to Russia and worked vigorously for the Revolution. Besides hundreds of articles on the Mexican and Great Wars, poems, librettos, he wrote a book "Ton Days That Shook the World," the story of the Russian Revolution. He was Soviet Russia's first ambassador to the United States, came home and spent his time in courts fighting sedition charges, returned to Russia and died of typhoid fever there in 1920 and was buried under the Kremlin.

Radical

He had become more and more radical while his friends like Walter Lippman grew steadily more reactionary. He was the only one of the brilliant New York group of pre-War liberals who actually went whole-hog for the Soviet experiment. His old mentor Lincoln Steffens bailed out on him, and at the news of his death Charles Townsend Copeland lamented his association with those awful Bolsheviks. John Reed is a legand, a fascinating legand. His story can stand retelling many times.

In "One of Us," the author and the artist have collaborated perfectly. The lithographs by Lynd Ward are impressive, the narrative by Granville Hicks is curt and clear. Every Harvard man, every follower of the fight for social justice, every lover of adventure, should own a copy.

John Reed's Biography

Granville Hicks's JOHN REED: THE MAKING OF A REVOLUTIONARY (Macmillan) is the first definitive, full-length biography of John Reed. It is enthusiastically recommended. It was reviewed in the CRIMSON last Spring.