HOD-CARRIER: Notes of a Laborer in an Unfinished Cathedral

These essays form a random ad hoc reckoning of the American experience as regards politics, the great national virtues, and some of our foibles. Mr. Johnson surveys our attitude toward justice and finds the plight of minorities a deficiency disease; he sees in Castro a sign of the strictures of our freedom. In Baltimore the quasi-renewal of the city reveals to him the evanescent character of American civilization; the Profumo case shows up the defects in the British Establishment. Myrdal, Galbraith and Milton Elsenhower bring light on the American economic-social scene; Dr. Frank Porter Graham's experience as UN mediator reflects on the true nature of that body and its chances for success. And so it goes. Thoughtful rather than overwhelmingly penetrating.