[lbo-talk] The Glock 9mm is your friend, he said...

[Erik Hetzner]

At Mon, 19 Jul 2004 19:49:24 -0500,
/ dave / <arouet at winternet.com> wrote:
> 
> Carrol Cox wrote:
> 
> > (Pound's source: Lincoln Steffens, Autobiography, pp. 747-56)*:
> > ( ... )
> > PS 2. The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens is a great book; I wonder if
> > anyone reads it anymore. He has a hilarious story of how as a cub
> > reporter he created a crime wave in New York City, and of how Theodore
> > Roosevelt, then Crime Commissioner, ordered him to end it.
> 
> A very worthwhile book. I found one a few years back at an estate
> sale. Being that it's parsed into 104 chapters - likely owing to the
> fact that many of the pieces first appeared in various periodicals of
> the day -
> it'd make for excellent "summertime reading" (for those who need an
> extra kick in the pants). There are multiple copies selling for
> peanuts (i.e. < 4.00) at abebooks.com, although one wants to make sure
> and get the complete 1931 original, as there was a '50s-era abridged
> version as well, not to mention individually-published volumes, etc.

It may be a good book, and he is an good writer, but with all respect
to Steffens, he seems to enjoy giving himself a more important role
than he actually played. For those who are aware of the case, he
almost certainly inflates his role in the confession of the McNamara
brothers to the 1910 bombing of the Los Angeles Times building. I
wouldn’t, myself, really trust his story of creating a crime wave. I’m
sure it makes a good story, though.

Erik