Word: hacks
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...find nothing but a dull collection of odes and occasional pieces. Browning did discover, however, that poor Poet Smart had been confined in an asylum just before A Song to David was first published - which prompted Browning to the romantic conclusion that Smart had been no better than a hack while, he had his wits; that when he lost them his dormant genius had burst into bloom...
...Republican," Robert A. Taft, running unopposed, got 73,000 more votes in the Republican primary than all seven candidates seeking the Democratic nomination put together. The winning Democrat, who will face Taft in November, is bouncy, bombastic State Auditor Joseph ("Jumping Joe") T. Ferguson. Since Jumping Joe, a jovial hack, was a bit weak on big world issues, Democrats had to reassure themselves that at least he was quite a vote getter. The story goes that when asked what he thought about Formosa, Jumping Joe replied: "Don't worry about Formosa-I carried it by 2,000 votes...
...Senator is expected to devote long hours to seeking the long view, yet to be on call whenever a constituent wants a guide to show him about Washington. If he strictly supports his party leaders, he is called a hack; if he defies them, he is called an obstructionist. His real bosses, the voters, are innumerable and nagging, usually indifferent to his best work (which passes unnoticed), and often hostile because of insignificant or irrelevant happenings. His every move is conditioned by a set of rules that would confuse a good chess player. The job would seem unrewarding...
...first few years of writing will be a war of attrition said De Rochemont, but he advised that any huckstering or hack writing job is better than not writing at all. He warned that good writers are often ruined when they take jobs in business...
Technically, the novel is weak. The loose, rambling prose does out take hold of the reader until the genuinely rich plot begins to move by itself. Lamkin falls to take advantage of the dramatic situations he has devised, and much too often he uses the hack writer's crutch of divulging information about one character through the lips of another. It is true that this indirectness of style produces a wispy, unrealistic effect that is appropriate to the subject matter, but at times it becomes apparent that Lamkin does not yet know how to explain a character's motives effectively...