promised interest of expropriated CanalnCompany stockholders and the alreadynviolated right of all vessels to passnthrough the Suez, Morris scorns, withoutnconsidering, these arguments. Theninvasion is judged to have been no morenthan “the last display of imperialistnmachismo.”nIt may, perhaps, be a sign of the timesnthat members of Eden’s own Tory partynmade even shriller attacks on his SueznA Valid Defense ofnthe IndefensiblenMichael Novak: The Guns of Lattimer;nBasic Books; New York. ThenAmerican Vision: An Essay on thenFuture of Democratic Capitalism.;nAmerican Enterprise Institute;nWashington, D.C.nby Christopher ManionnX. he contemporary reader of Aristotle’snPolitics might well concludenthat the spoudaios—the truly free mannwho possesses intellectual and moralnvirtues which embody a philosophicalnhabit of mind—is up there with thensnail darter on the lists of species mostnlikely to be exterminated in present-daynAmerica. And Aristotle might join innthe observation that the modern Americanncapitalist, the “man of action” submergednin the day-to-day details andnspecialties of his business, would notnbe a likely candidate for a life of philosophicalnreflection and cultivation ofnthe contemplative intellect, which Aristotlenconsidered indispensable for thenlife of anyone who would not be a slave.nThe same analysis would apply to modernnpolitics, a world inhabited by technicalnwhiz-kids and pragmatic empiricists,nwhose only lapses from mechanismnMr. Manion, a graduate of Notre Dame,nis Assistant to the Director of the RockfordnCollege Institute.npolicy throughout November and December,n1956. The prevalence of thisndefeatist rhetoric in the press and innthe House of Commons not only led tonhis resignation from the prime ministership,nbut signaled the accelerated retreatnof his country from internationalnaffairs. “No more neocolonial adventures,”nhas become for Morris and fornmany of his countrymen the justificationnfor a continuing failure of nationalnwill. nnoccur not in the direction of philosophicalnreflection, but of romantic wallowingnin ideological swamps alreadynlittered with the fossils of those whonhave gone before them.nSo, one would not expect the realmsnof business or politics to suffer fromnan excess of philosophers; but neithernis there any great demand for them. Itnis the nature of both activities (givennour contemporary circumstances) toneschew genuinely philosophical reflection,neven as they are governed by ideasn—or, perhaps more often, intellectualnconfusion.nIn the past, Michael Novak’s worksnhave covered the range of politics, religion,nculture and sports. His viewsnreflect a thoughtful, refreshing andnoften controversial mind, and the worksnconsidered here are no exception. Theynportray two very different confrontations,nthe one at the turn of the century,nthe other in contemporary America,nand their juxtaposition reveals the intimationnof some very correct, even irrefutablenobservations of our society.nIn The Guris of Lattimer, Novak examinesnthe clash between a group ofnimmigrant miners in Pennsylvania andna posse of local deputies—and whatncould be another tired portrayal of “thenbosses” exploiting “the masses” becomesna thoughtful analysis of a little-knownn(and quite ignored) incident in Ameri­nnncan history. In The American Vision,nhe explores the symbolic language ofnthe anticapitalist lexicon employed bynan emerging class of critics whose verynsuccess depends on their not beingnclearly understood. But Novak understandsnthem very well, and his insightsninto the mind of the anticapitalist “newnclass,” when seen in the light of hisnportrayal of the ordeal of his people—nfor he claims them as his own—whonsuffered at the hands of the Lattimernmine owners seventy years ago, constitutena most intriguing sociopoliticalnattitude abounding with hopeful possibilitiesnfor American self-understanding.no n Friday afternoon, September 10,n1897, at the Lattimer Mines in Pennsylvania’sncoal country, a posse fired onnunarmed miners who were marchingnto spread support of their strike. Nineteennmen were killed, and a sham trialnacquitted the sheriff and the membersnof the posse who had done the killing.nThough its proportions qualify it as antragedy worthy of mention in Americannhistory, it has been buried among thenfootnotes or deemed unsuitable material.nMichael Novak, himself a child of Slavicnimmigrants, tripped upon this “hole innhistory” and pursued an ambitious programnof research to fill it. Most scholarsnknew little of the Slavic tongue in thosendays, he explains, and the dead were alln”foreigners,” many of them still foreignnsubjects. They spoke little or no English,nand were a continual irritant in the morenestablished WASP communities whichnsurrounded the coal fields. “I want mynchildren to have a history,” writes Novak.n”Though not a historian, I found angap in history. There was nothing to donbut fill the gap myself.”nThe world abounds with propagandandeploring exploited workers and theninhumanity of bosses; but Novak doesnnot embrace that theme. Instead, henpresents a piece of documented fictionnwhich explores the full texture of thenlife—for it was by no means a merenexistence—of the immigrant Slavicnminers, the immigrant Irish who hadn%nChronicles of Culturen