OUR history of the present day, unfolding as it does at more than ten times the rate of the epochs that characterize the usual study of history, manifests itself brutally and almost unbelievably in "The Roosevelt Year." There is no unthinking moment of any public person, no hideous finals of criminal or unfortunate to which the omnipresent photographer has not penetrated.

The shocking eloquence, the pathetic intimacy, and graphic power of the news photograph will unquestionably win for this type of record a far greater importance in history recording than ever before.

Long after bookshelves full of one-time best sellers have been carted off to the inevitable oblivion of church fairs and charity libraries, such photographic collections as "The Roosevelt Year" will be reopened and studied over. Pictures tell a story more easily, more quickly, and more convincingly than any conceivable collection of words. The tragic picture of Herbert Hoover and President Roosevelt driving together on March 4, 1933, both subdued at the ruins of a great country, approaches the classic. The photographs of riots and lynchings; cruel, pathetic, bestial, describe the animal man with a conciseness unattainable otherwise. The titles and the selection of pictures of "The Roosevelt Year" are sometimes monotonous and disappointing, but this is relatively unimportant.

The fact is that we must definitely recognize a new form of historical literature, the tremendous importance and eloquence of which is certain to increase with the passage of time.