Give Camels for Christmas! There's no doubt about how much people appreciate Camels - the cigarette that's made from finer, MORE EXPENSIVE TOBACCOS. A gift of Camels says: "Happy Holidays and Happy Smoking!"
( right ) A pound of Prince Albert in a real glass humidor that keeps the tobacco in prime condition and becomes a welcome possession.
(left) One pound of Prince Albert-the "biteless" tobacco -in an attractive Christmas gift package.
(right ) The famous Christmas package, the Camel carton-10 packs of "20's " - 200 cigarettes. You ' ll find it at your dealer's.
(ctbove) Another Christmas special-4 boxes of Camels in "flat fifties " - in gay holiday dress.
lrinceAlbert
THE NATIONAL JOY SMOKE
If you know a man owns a pipe-you're practically certain to be right if you give him PRINCE ALBERT -The National Joy Smoke. Beginners like P.A. because it doesn't bite. Occasional pipe-smokers find it's extra cool. And the regulars think it's tops for mellow taste.
Copyright, 1937, R. J. Reynold s Tob a cco Comp a ny, \Vinston. S alem, North Carolina
ASKME WHAT l'D LIKE-AND ING MENGIF Y CANUSE. S GIVINGTH SPECIAL1-LB.
GEORGE SCHEER, Editor-in-Chief ; J. H. KELLOGG , Richmond College Editor; LAVINIA i WINSTON, Westhampton College Editor ; STUART GRAHAM, RICHARD L. SCAMMON, lt i ROYALL BRANDIS, MARTHA ELLIS, MARIE KEYSER, EUGENIA JOEL, Assistant Editors ; lt R. M. C. HARRIS, JR., Business Manage r; JOHN S. HARRIS, MILDRED HARRELL, Assist ant i Business M anagers. 25c per issue; $LOO per year. lt
Night, with faintly rustling Ariel wings Which waft away Apollo's fiery seat, And inky cloak with sudden stroke that brings To leaping, laughing beauty bleak defeat, Why come you here our day-time joys to greet With raven, blinding blackness? Oh, behold A spear of light the edge of you delete On yonder hill where earth and sky enfold. A pinkish flush, the sky ablush, and gold Invades your stricken domain to allure The hiding things from out their dwellings cold
Which creeping shadows forced them to endure.
Oh Night, your hated power from us is gone; Sweet daylight has obscured your face so wan.
EDWARD BARNWELL WALKER, JR.
"TWILIGHTOF THEGODS"
By NATALYE T. BABCOCK
"MAN ASTHE BOSSis doomed.
"The next hundred years will see the beginning of an American matriarchy-a nation of Amazons in the psychological
--rt '[[ I
1uestion as to who
gaged in a private war against convention. It is true that social convention still largely sets rules in our own time, but are there not innumerable examples of the overstepping of boundaries rather than physical sense. In a hundred years, there will be a serious sex battle. And in a thousand years, women will definitely rule this country."
Dr. William Moulton Marston, noted psychologist, formerly of Harvard, is speaking.
expounded by rules? The most Jne~e soon oe no recent and the most publicized
wea~s the pants event of this character was the abdication of King Edward VIII for the woman he loved, a commoner. Society pretend-
He concludes that women don't really want to rule, but that "they are being driven to it by a desire for love."
Woman's battle against conditions exacted upon her by the conventions of society has been an eternal battle. All women, since the days of Eve, have tried to vindicate their rights and their place in the world. The position of woman in the world of today is much more stable than it has ever been, and is steadily growing stronger.
This desire for love, which Dr. Marston spoke of and which has been thwarted in so many ways by rules of society, has not only been the cause of the struggle of women for emancipation, but has been the subject of authors of every century. Maria Edgeworth, of the eighteenth century, treats the case of Grace Nugent against her love for Lord Colambre in The Absentee; Charles Reade, of the nineteenth century, in his Christie Johnstone; and Ann V eronicaJ by H. G. Wells, of the twentieth century, shows a more daring, a more personal, attack for the social freedom of women.
Each of these three women, representative of the women of their respective times, en-
[3}
ed to be shocked, and I can imagine that a good many people were honestly shocked. They need to be shocked. Are not rich people marrying poor people the world over? Are not socialites marrying socalled "commoners"? Are not American heiresses marrying into European families of "nobility"? Of course they are. And it has all grown out of the f emin~ne battle for social equality and for international acknowledgment of this struggle for freedom.
Society today seems to think that women have just recently begun to fight for recognition as equals to men in life. Why, the battle has been going on for centuries! Where have you been while the guns have been booming? In the eighteenth century, women began to realize that something had to be done. But what was this "something"? They called it emancipation of women. The very word gives you an idea of the imprisonment of feminine ideas and talent. Today women are slowly, but certainly, gaining ground in this "man's world." The simple fact that the men opposed their ambitions was enough to spur them on. What opposition doesn't aid in this way? There is no use to fight if there is no foe.
Convention has been the ruler of woman's place in society for too long a time. Women realize this fact and have been trying for equal recognition by the world ever since they were acknowledged to have a mind of their own. The woman of the eighteenth century was almost the first to attempt to gain the recognition which society did not grant to her willingly. Questions of birth and rank were of importance then, for women had not yet voiced the desire to enter into the business world. During this time, too, woman was still a bit wary of man, who had held the whip to her actions up until this time. It was only natural, therefore, that woman should turn to man for help in this struggle. Man did not realize that he was aiding in the beginning of a fight which may yet be his complete undoing. He did, however, do most of the battling in the eighteenth century. I called this a woman's struggle, but man was used as a tool when it really began to take on a form. It was he who strove for the social recognition of the woman he loved, in order that he might marry her and be free from gossip and ridicule. This started things turning in the mind of the thinking woman. If a man could fight for a woman, and win-why couldn't a woman wage a successful campaign against this thing called convention? So the war started.
The most important enemy of the woman of the 1800's was family distinction. In Maria Edgeworth's book, The Absentee , Lord Colambre loves a woman whom he believes to be an illegitimate child of a family which he despises. In order to satisfy himself, and to make it possible for him to marry this woman, he sets about to gain social approval for her. He wins the fight, and he and his beloved are happy, free from scandal. Thus man did the battling for woman. He was completely unaware of the fact that he was abetting the ideas
in the minds of women. Women saw, and took note of the fact that man was fighting for woman. If he could do it, why couldn't the woman carry on a winning battle? The next century found women taking an active part in the struggle for feminine emancipation. It is true that man was still aiding her, but by this time, women had acquired some ideas peculiar to their ambitions and were halving the ordeal and "doing their part." The nineteenth-century woman fought against class distinction. Just as in the eighteenth century, where marriage and social recognition were impossible unless the ancestry of the woman was equal to that of the man,-in the nineteenth century, if the woman were not of the same class as the man, convention ruled that the two should not marry.
Charles Reade, writing in the nineteenth century, was another novelist made indignant by social wrongs. It was during his time that women had begun to earn their own livings in very much the same way as did men. But a woman who did this was looked down on. A woman who worked! It was beyond belief! When Reade shows Christie Johnstone earning her living by selling fish in the streets, he shows the very reason that class distinction became pertinent. When, in this story, you hear the mother of the man who loved Christie say, "But-a fishwife! Oh, my son?" you have the attitude of that time. The character of Christie was above reproach, and her only fault, in the eyes of society, was that she was not in the same strata of life as the man she loved; and for that reason alone, as "in other respects she was a worthy young woman," she was forbidden a place of recognition.
Christie Johnstone depicts this next step in the struggle of women for their social freedom The man and the woman fought together in the nineteenth century, the woman having a [4]
very active part. She fought convention itself, trying to prove that she was just as worthy as any other woman, while her lover fought his mother, who was typical of that group of persons who insisted upon the convention of class equality. One step forward was taken. Woman is in the fray now she is fighting and winning!
It was in the beginning of the twentieth century that the battle became that of woman alone. Men had realized by this time that women knew what they were after and were fighting for it as gravely as any war had ever been fought. The men began to fear what women would do if they once gained power, and it was his fear of being jolted from his reigning throne which caused man to fight backJ combat, rather than aid, woman as he had in the two preceding centuries. The struggle today is women against men as well as against convention.
H. G . Wells personifies the beginning of woman 's single strife in his novel Ann Veronica. Here, the theme of a woman's place in modern society, as determined by education, politics, and love, when marriage is impossible, is carried out to the nth degree. This work of Wells', as all his work, is noted for its journalistic timeliness. Through his character Ann Veronica he shows us the young girl typical of the early twentieth century, and her struggle. The stupidity of our fathers and the absurdity of our mothers is brought to our attention by the action in Ann Veronica. Mr. Wells brings us figures, flashes of color, the humming of voices, which are all strictly contemporary. When Ann announces her intention of attending an unchaperoned dance in London and of spending the remnant of the night in a hotel, a whole system of ideas is packed into her aunt's reply, "But-my dear!"
Ann Veronica very firmly sets aside all con-
vention when she goes to the man she loves and, although he is married, tells him that she wants him to be her lover. Her attitude toward what people will say and what they will think is summed up in her retort, "I don't care!" She does what she feels is "the rightest of all conceivable things."
It seems that there is an instinct of rebellion. It does not have anything to do with our times particularly. People think it does, but they are wrong. Life is rebellion, or nothing. Some day, I wonder if one won't need to rebel against customs and laws. I wonder if all this discord among people will have gone. Some day, perhaps . . . who knows?
In twentieth-century minds, life is two things: morality and adventure. Morality tells us what is right, and adventure moves us. Jf morality means anything, it means keeping boundaries and respecting implications. If individuality means anything, it means breaking out of boundaries and with convention
The woman of today who dares to say, or even to think, that she wants to live her own life is not looked on as a freak of human nature . But what of those women who had to struggle centuries past in order to achieve this state? As Ann Veronica says of her father, who is typical of the attitude of men, " . . . He stood over me like a cliff; the thought of him nearly turned me aside from everything I have done. He was the social order; he was law and wisdom.''
I have used these three stories to show the development of woman's struggle with the conventions of society. This struggle had three stages: the first stage was that in which the woman was a little too timid to fight for her own rights, and the man who loved her fought for her-and won; the second stage was that in which both man and woman fought together-and won; the third stage was one in
[5}
which the battle was that of the woman alone -the woman who dared to do as she pleased -and is winning.
The keynote of the time of each of these stages is shown in the "buts" of each novel used in this development. In The Absentee 1 it was "But-a St. Omar!", a "but" of family distinction; in Christie f ohnstone 1 it was "Buta fishwife!", one of class distinction; in Ann V eronica1 it was "But-my dear!", the "but" of convention.
II
When, in the twentieth century, American women won the right to vote, it may have seemed to most of them that at last they were on an equal basis, in every respect, with men. So they were, legally; but the old argument of " woman's place" has not been completely hushed up by the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment. It is a subject, which when it is brought up, particularly in mixed company, is always good for a lively disagreement. In many, resentment against women in business smoulders, though it remains carefully hidden Occasionally, especially in times of economic depression, it has broken forth in sharp moves against women job-holders.
Women have always and will always carry on this struggle with conventions of society ruling. I, myself, in desiring to enter the field of journalism, which is a comparatively new invasion by my sex, am trying to carry on this battle with society.
Why should men feel that journalism is not a field for women? Does not the modern woman have ideas and is she not capable of writing down these ideas? Physically, as well as mentally, she is just as capable as man. To the younger women of today, the so-called " women of the younger generation," journalism presents the same aspect as it does to
men. The fascination of doing things, of being in the front lines whenever anything happens, of being able to tell others what you think on a subject, appeals to the young woman as well as to the young man. Journalism is, to a greater degree than almost all other businesses or professions, individualistic. It is to each worker what he or she makes it. And why cannot a woman make as much of it as can a man?
Most persons today think of journalism as being connected with newspaper work alone . Journalism extends further than that. Writing for periodicals is considered just as much in the field of journalism as in newspaper reporting. Yet the man of today feels that the woman of today is incapable of being a journalist. Why so? Man's mind is no greater in this respect. The women have just as many journalistic qualities as the men. Women have turned to this field because they feel that it is something in which they are as well prepared as their husbands, their brothers, their male friends. Or should they be called "friends"? They certainly are not friendly toward women journalists.
Men are always ready to list for you the professions in which women have become accomplished. After they have finished reciting for you, they will add that almost half of these professions were once solely for men, and are now overrun with women. Men are highly resentful of this fact. But do they ever stop to think of that field to which they are always referring as the "woman's place" that field into which men have entered and in which they earn their livings? Look at the number of male chefs in the world today. And yet, the men are always reminding the women that woman's duty is a domestic one, cooking meals for her family. Then again, how many men are employed as valets and house servants and [6}
the like? Do not men say that woman's place is in the home?
Why should this be so? That woman's place is in the home is only as men have made it. During the days before modern civilization, woman necessarily remained in the home, such as it was, because she was not physically able to combat the world at large. Due to tradition, which is the thing that women are trying to escape, woman's place remained in the home. Today, however, with all the conveniences and inventions for the betterment of society, need the woman be confined within the home? Why shouldn't she too be allowed to try for success and recognition in the world? Man invades the woman's realm and then raises an incomparable uproar when women turn to some other means of livelihood. Is this fair? The "woman's place" is the mainstay of the men's argument against women in professions, but men are continually edging into the women's world. And men make a big to-do about women's forcing their way into the men's world. Such inconsistent creatures, men! They have made it so that, in reality, women have no particular place to fill! The woman of today is fully prepared and equipped to be man's companion. Could this be her "place?" If it is, it is very insecure. This insecurity is the reason for what may be called a new movement for the rights of women-the right to be equal in responsibility for the social order, to earn credit for the betterment of that order, and to help in the building of a society which will make it possible for both men and women to come to their highest development.
The men of today have made the world one which is hard and ugly, too hard, lately, even for themselves. Either let them be strong enough to survive it or mend it-or not berate woman because her nature had to change in order that she too might endure and survive.
As time progressed, during the past decades, man's chosen life began to exclude woman from her share of his life and from human relationships in general. Men have become engrossed in the excitement of the "game" for its own sake. To this they have sacrificed the major part of their lives, hopes, and ambitions. For this they have neglected women and those values of life which are associated with women.
Yet men object when women strike out for themselves in the professions! Journalism, being one of the latest fields invaded by women, is one under fire now. Men are finding innumerable reasons that they think women unfitted for this kind of work. Why should this be the case? Why should the woman be the one who is always being left out of things? Women have just as much desire to be journalists as do men. I have an intense desire to be a journalist and I intend to be one. This intention is now, and has been, so firmly implanted in my mind that it will take more than a few weak excuses and unfavorable attitudes from the male sex to swerve me from my purpose. Have they any right even to try to tell me what I should and should not do? Is there any reason that I should not exert myself and defy tradition and convention? Old conventions are being rapidly replaced. This has been made true by those women courageous enough to do as they pleased and not as society ruled they should do. Man has always identified woman directly with Nature, because she is the reproducer of life. Since he must dominate Nature in order to exist, it is only natural that he should try to dominate woman too, lest, from his point of view, she envelop him. Woman resents this self-appointed power and she fights back. This battle will continue until man ceases to regard her as a fear-inspiring force. When he consents to learn from her, as she has [7}
learned from him, the value and meaning of her innate variation from himself, then and only then can they use together resources for the common good.
What accomplishment there has been toward this end has been unfortunately concentrated in the hands of comparatively few women, although a good many years have passed since woman raised her head and hand for the advancement and recognition of her sex as man's equal in all ways. But the resentment of men has not disappeared. It has lain latent and has quietly grown and deepened. Men are no longer so angry as they were in the beginning when women broke away from convention and did unaccustomed or conspicuous things. Yet they seem to like women as a whole much less.
Breakings away from conventional rulings are almost commonplace today. Men break with convention in their social conduct in innumerable ways. Isn ' t it convention that man should raise his hat to a woman? Isn't it convention that man should give his seat on a crowded street car or railroad train to a woman? Isn't it convention that man should be the protector of woman? Isn't it convention that men do pretty much as they please, while women have been forced to live under restrictions? Do we adhere to convention as much as
our ancestors? Are we expected to? Are not the men those who dared to break first with convention? Did they not help woman in her first attempt to follow the men, even if the men did this unknowingly? Don't you think it possible that men are afraid that women might get control of those things after which they are reaching, and in this way, also have in their grasp those threads of life which men must follow?
If what Dr. Marston said is true, and women will become the rulers of this country in a thousand years, then men have already lost their battle against women, and women have won their battle against men and against convention. If women in the past have fought winning battles, then why can't we women of today feel that we are perfectly capable of winning our struggle.
Surely the desire of such women as myself to become an active part of the journalistic world is only one phase of the strife of women. It may be only a minor part, but it will be through journalism that we women will be able to get what we feel we are entitled to: a place in the world as well as in the home . The importance of the realization of this fact is only now becoming recognized, and women are fighting even harder than before
Snow tears, blown full
In tiny silver cups, Bathed in cradled drops of ocean's Treasure.
D.E . T.
Why do I remember
Those small and fleeting things,
The wind blown through the tree tops,
The sea gull's silver wings?
The emerald-soft twilights,
The sea's lull, gentle sway,
Why do I remember
When I'm so far away?
Why do I remember
The joy that is half-broken,
A leaf torn from a book,
A childish wish unspoken?
Why do I remember
A frightened pair of eyes,
A gleam and then a blackness,
A sigh of soft surprise?
Strange, I should remember, It was so long ago,
Yet then I felt tranquillity, That now I do not know.
KIRA NICHOLSKY.
How to Analyze Current Events in 1ioe las~ f'essons
By ROY ALL BRANDIS
"President Roosevelt announced today that he would submit a bill to the next session of Congress doubling the present income taxes.' ' -News item.
Westbrook Pegler:
And so the Big Boss is cracking down on the citizen who gets out and works for a little dough. The bright boys in Washington probably think it's a great scheme for raising revenue. They must have had to stay up all night to think of this one. And they are the only things that were up, judging from today's stock prices.
The strong-arm men of Europe, Adolph and Benny, used the same idea to confiscate what everybody who works earned and give it to the boys on the inside who never had worked and never will. Where those boys showed themselves amateurs was in announcing that they were doing it in the name of fascism. Our Washington professional uses the term we used to be proud of, liberal, and throws us poor followers out in the cold but not before taking the shirts off our backs.
The fell ow who said what we needed was <t good five-cent cigar will have to change his slogan as there certainly won't be anything under a quarter smoked in Washington and none at all elsewhere.
Walter Lippman:
The proposal of the president to increase by one hundred per cent the present taxes on annual net income is of primary importance to
both the tax-paying and non-tax-paying citizen. This question can be best discussed if approached from three different views, the financial view, the political view, and the social view.
( 1 ) It has become quite evident in the last few years that the government was pursuing a very dangerous course in continuing to increase the national debt without a corresponding increase in governmental revenues. This proposal is definitely a step in the direction of relief of this condition.
However, it must also be recognized that one evil is often partially remedied by the in-troduction of a worse one. In this case it is readily evident that the passage of this bill will so stifle the usual channels of business that the final result will undoubtedly be financial ruin and chaos.
(2) From the political standpoint the president is obviously hoping that this proposal will appeal to the masses with sufficient force to give him a substantial majority when he comes up for reelection to his fourth term in November. He is staking his hopes on the theory that he will gain more votes from the lower strata of society than he will lose in the upper brackets.
The immediate effects of this move will not be apparent for some days, but will be highly indicative of the general results of the proposed bill. It will certainly be met with approval in the far West and in the South. The New England states on the other hand will
[ 10}
undoubtedly put up stern opposition to the revolutionary plan.
(3) From the social standpoint, it is already seen as inevitable a further split between the upper and lower classes of society because of the president's suggestion. Whether the division will continue along this line is mainly dependent upon further policies of the Roosevelt administration. That the state of affairs will result in some act of violence is the chief danger at the moment.
Hugh Johnson:
Some day the American people will rise and kick out the whole set of crack-brained economists that are ruling the nation. This plan to double income taxes is the last straw on the back of the long-suffering American businessman who has put up with more silly collegeprofessor ~heories than any weak-stomached people could have endured.
It has probably never occurred to those smug creatures who seem to think that they have orders from the Almighty that this new tax might be the act that will kill the goose that lays the golden eggs for them. If they think they can get another through the WP A, they are going to be sadly mistaken.
And yet this new move on the administration's part should be no surprise to anyone who has read the papers in the last few years. The policy of Washington in the matter of public .finance has always been silly and obscure. The New Dealers have been losing sleep night after night thinking of nonsensical
methods of raising money. The sky-high national debt has always been a matter of small moment to them. Business has always been considered able to bear the extra expense if the bright young men who run the government ran a little short of millions for new projects in strangling little pigs or plowing under the God-given crops.
Back of all this is the power of the greatest political machine the world has ever seen and back of the machine is "Super Political Boss" Farley with his cohorts of cringing officeholders. This illogical, uneconomic, and downright crazy idea of doubling the income tax is just another rung in the ladder of wasteful .financethat is leading the American people to ruin and destruction. But all is not hopeless.
Thank God we have in the White House a man who is sane, level-headed, sincere, honest, kindly, just, and wise-Mr. Roosevelt.
Frank Kent:
The president has suffered another blow to his prestige, and the Republicans are one step nearer to control of the government by 1950.
Paul Mallon:
Persons on the inside of the president's new scheme to double income taxes see in the proposal the brain of Messrs. Corcoran and Cohen, the current brain-trusters. Washington circles seem to feel that the bill would pass but not without an attempt to stop it by a bloc of northern Senators. A .filibuster may be tried but the heavy Democratic majority is certain to defeat the attempt.
[ 11 J
By PAUL B. WATLINGTON, JR.
"We wanna get married."
Timidly, with countless blushes succeeding each other over their faces as if in the full rays of an oscillating crimson spotlight, their shy eyes glancing wildly as if in search of something to rescue them from their embarrassment, the frightened young couple stand at the portal of the minister's home, the threshold over which they will step into a life of wedded bliss or a life of eternal discontent.
Regardless of financial status or social environment, the runaway couples are all in the same category of self-consciousness, seeming to possess only one phrase of their conversational repertoire, as they stand totally awed at the parsonage door that opened in answer to their feeble ring; all they say is, "We wanna get married.''
Although in no way a competitor with the famous marriage mart at Elkton, Maryland, or the original Gretna Green, Scotland, a certain little city of my acquaintance does receive a goodly influx of couples bent upon the sacred and oft misunderstood marriage ceremony. Its easy access to the people of four states seems to account for this. From close observation in this "metropolis" I feel safe in citing some human-interest anecdotes.
Dan Cupid seems to defy conventional hours of the clock, seasons of the year, and the economic status of the nation in his mad attempts to unite in holy wedlock a multitudi-
nous aggregation of highly contrasting specimens of "homo sapiens."
If a couple comes during the hours of the court day, the license fee is only two dollars, but should the unfortunate couple be one of the after-office-hour arrivals, they may be assessed an exorbitant ten or twelve dollars. As the state in which our city is located requires no witnesses, all that is necessary after purchasing the license is to find a minister of the gospel.
Despite the fact that the young couples usually select pastors of their home-town church affiliation, they appear to be totally ignorant of how to act in the presence of any minister, so dumbfounded and nervous are they. I have seen some youngsters so flabbergasted and confused that they both tried to walk through the doorway at one time, invariably getting jammed together and requiring the gentle, firm assistance of the minister to free them.
The number of people who try to dodge paying the preacher for his services is incredible! A favorite trick is to tell of an unfortunate auto accident or break-down en route and the resultant consumption of all their mere pittance-at the close of the ceremony. "Oh, but we will send some money just as soon as we get home, Reverend.'' The Reverend smiles benignly, knowing from a half-hundred previous cases that he will never hear from that couple again!
One young chap made an agreement to re-
pay the pastor in some manner, although he couldn't financially. True to his word, heappeared several weeks after the nuptials with a cute, but leaky, puppy which thoroughly delighted the pastor's little son, though the good wife of the parsonage was driven nearly to distraction by the mad-house effect produced by the canine.
Those persons who do pay usually insert their remuneration in an envelope, handing it tremblingly to the minister as they leave. Immediately after the door is closed and the blissful couple safely out of earshot, the envelope becomes a source of great speculation as to its probable content. Usually two or three worn, one dollar bills are the custom, while "fivers" are not completely out of style. That the amount of the fee should be of interest to all of the pastor's family is not at all unusual, due to the fact that more than once they have had to go hungry or without heat in the house because the parishoners were tardy in paying their church dues, especially in times of economic and spiritual depression. Many a marriage fee has gone toward paying a skeptical grocer or an anxious coal dealer.
Once an envelope obviously contained a coin of some description and, since it was during the days when gold coins were fashionable and permissible, the pastor smiled appreciatively, as he handed it to his wife. Imagine her disgusted surprise at finding the envelope contained-a nickel!
Several years ago a grizzled old farmer in his second romancehood paid twenty dollars, but evidently by mistake, for he came running back in a half-hour to exchange a smaller bill for it.
Small fees might be accounted for, we observe, by the clause that the license contains, " clerk's fee, two dollars." Maybe romantic
couples misconstrue "clerk" to mean "clergyman."
The old-fashioned "shot-gun" weddings are still with us, portrayed by family members accompanying out -of-the-state couples. Apropos of these weddings-I have seen tobaccochewing Virginians, whiskers stained by innumerable squirts of amber, grinning sardonically at the chagrined groom and toughened Pennsylvanians scowling menacingly at their respective youngsters. In deference to Virginia and Pennsylvania, we might add that the citizens of the Free State are not free of these weddings either. Of course, a sedan, rather than a hastily saddled mule, is used for the quick trip to the weddin' nowadays.
Right in the midst of one ceremony for two fine looking, well dressed young people, who had come a considerable distance alone, the bride collapsed in a dead faint on the arm of her lover. This so disconcerted the groom that he became as weak as water; the minister finally had to carry the lass upstairs. Upon being revived in the bedroom of the pastor's wife, the comely girl confided in the elder woman that this marriage meant disinheritance for both herself and her groom by well-to-do families. One cannot help but respect such love that knew no bounds.
Someone asked "Why the elopements?" A conglomeration of attributive reasons prompt the action. Often a sudden romantic inspiration ends in elopement, while more of ten it is just the sheer love of doing something important in an unconventional way that attracts young folk. The desire for marriage without elaborate, painstaking arrangements for a church wedding frequently means elopement. The lack of sanction by some close relative will cause youth to take to flight, while religious difficulties oftimes seem abridged by awayf rom-home nuptials.
[ 13]
Unsound economic conditions would appear a deterrence to elopement, but, on the contrary, they are not. The signs of poverty in manners and clothing of some "dopers" is indeed appalling. One pities youngsters who are either nobly brave or absolutely ignorant in facing the world "from scratch."
Many authorities on marriage are condemning elopements on various counts and rightly so, as it is obvious that youngsters bent solely on romantic thrills are so overpowered by one another's sexual appeal that they are not willing to consider the serious implications of the "state of matrimony."
Pennsylvania was right in passing its threeday required notice of marriage intent. A national reform in marriage laws is sadly needed.
Located five miles below the Mason-Dixon line, which is Pennsylvania's southern border, our Maryland " city" is five miles north of West Virginia, twenty-six miles north of Virginia, and only seventy miles from Baltimore and the Nation's Capital. Naturally its marriage rate is high.
There is no such thing as a "marrying parson" in our little city, as all the ministers marry about the same number of couples. Only one minister was renegade enough to attempt to get the taxi drivers under his control!
An unfortunate situation over which the fine pastors have no control is the marriage racket carried on downtown. Several men hang around the clerk ' s office at the court house and spot the bewildered couples emerging with their " priceless ' ' piece of paper. One of the men hurries up to the love-birds and offers to take them to any minister they might name. Unsuspecting couples are gullible and find after the wedding that they have been suckers for exorbitant taxi fees in addition to service fees for the man who helped them
Repeated attempts by the clergymen to eliminate this evil have failed, since technically the racketers are not breaking any law!
As far as the type of people who come to the parsonages of the place are concerned, they are seldom college-trained or professional people. They are mostly country folk, farmers, store-keepers, factory hands, auto mechanics.
Sometimes double weddings enliven the occasion, but they do not double the clergyman's fee. One jovial foursome had a grand time, when one of the men spied the minister's son's xylophone, kept in the parlor because of its ungainly size, and played lustily a tune fairly resembling the well-known march from Lohengrin.
Most ministers will marry divorced couples, provided the proper papers are at hand, but absolutely refuse to marry people even slightly suspected of having imbibed alcoholic refreshments.
Attire of the minister means but little to the anxious couples. Many marriages have been performed with the minister clad in jumpers , having been called from tinkering with his car, or . in golf clothes after a round with a friend. The smell of ether and antiseptics has been noticed on the clergyman's clothes when he was called from visiting at the hospital. Bathrobes are tolerated for hasty marriages in the wee small hours of the morning, the couples never being apologetic for having disturbed the pastor's sleep
As each happy, awkward couple emerge from the ceremony, the pastor smilingly wishes them "happy motoring," but he breathes a silent prayer for their marital safe-keeping, as a lot of "joy and sorrow, sickness and health, prosperity and poverty" lies behind the simple statement, " we wanna get married."
[ 14]
MODERNSOCIETYhas a smug way of buoying itself up on nicely formulated humanitarian codes of ethics. Most consp1euous among our conceits-and a
"Bo~,tetcli ftte fttumb-sc-tews"
ByW.R. HUDGINS
the "Water Treatment." The victim was stretched taut on a rack, and a linen cloth saturated with water forced up his nostrils and into his throat. The remainder of the cloth covered the goodly number line our socalled robe of civilizationis our attitude toward cruelty in any of its multifarious garbs . Society is, in the final analysis, an empty shell within an empty shell, the shells
face. In all probability the victim would suffocate in this condition anyway, but to give it a master touch, a continuous stream of water was run being composed of " do's" and " don't' s." Occasionally some "don't" projects itself out too far and attracts widespread attention. But as long as these two conflicting elements remain flush with each other, no disturbance of any note takes place. One of the projections that cause most trouble is cruelty, or in more emphatic terms, torture.
Yet while we condemn ancient methods of torture as being uncivilized, most of us are unaware of the practices of the American police departments in getting information from reluctant individuals suspected of criminal acts. We hide our heads in the sand and consider ourselves advanced in the scale of things. In actuality, the American third degree is a direct outgrowth of the methods employed in the darker ages for extracting confessions. Since this is true, we clear ourself of charges of sadistic tendencies in considering both the old and new tortures.
Tortures devised by the Spanish Inquisition could not have had their origin in the power under whom it was alleged to serve. One of the ingenious little devices used by this group carries a bit of irony in the title. It was called
over the cloth. The victim struggled to escape this harrowing torture, but spikes placed on either side of his body warned him to seek no relief in that quarter. After prolonged moments of torture water would finally fill the lungs, and the victim would gradually succumb, seized with horrible convulsions for one precious breath of air.
Certain political circles of ancient Nuremberg leave tales of torture hardly credible. According to tradition, the famous "Iron Maiden" originated here. This diabolical instrument was very effective in that it made short work of the victim. It was a casket shaped somewhat like the human body, and lined with spikes of different lengths. The machine was comparatively simple to operate; all that the executioner had to do was to place the struggling victim in the spiny recess of the device, and slowly close the door, forcing the spikes into the various parts of the body.
Beneath the walls of the Old Rathus of Nuremberg dank sinister passages twine and intertwine leading the visitor to chambers of horror, where by the light of torches may be seen the gruesome remains of those who died
[ 15]
in the racks of torture. Among the torture devices found here is the "Fiddle," so named because of the wailing heard when the executioner fitted the instrument on some new victim, and applied pressure to the thumb screw or clasped the collar of spikes about his neck. The "Fass" or "Cradle" would have been a comfortable rocking chair had it not been lined with sharp steel spikes. A victim could be reasonably certain that he would be rocked to his last sleep in one of the chairs. In many instances the intended victim would attempt suicide rather than face this torture. These chairs are still in existence; in fact, some were shown in London a few years ago. The "Spiked Hare" was a wooden roller covered with sharp steel spikes. The victim, stretched in a prone position, had his body lacerated by the spikes as the roller traversed his body.
The "Spanish Donkey" was perhaps one of the most atrocious of all torture devices. This fiendish machine consisted of an upright board sharpened to a fine edge. Victims were forced to sit as,tride this "Donkey," and weights tied to their legs gradually pulled them down, splitting their bodies in half with horrible slowness.
The torture of the so called Plague-Spreaders of Milan about 1630 breaks every rule in the code of civilization. Persons convicted of spreading the plague were horribly mutilated with white hot pinchers Then their hands were cut off at the wrists. The torture continued with the victims having their bones broken with hammers. The surviving parts were exposed to the "Wheel" for six hours. As a fitting climax, the victims were swung up by their feet and consumed by fire.
In the Prison of the Doges of Venice may be found iron helmets so designed that they would fit tightly over the victim's head, shutting out most of the air supply. Thus the pris-
oner was tortured in three different ways: lack of food and air, and the excruciating agony of the implement crushing his skull. There was a small perforation on one side where the executioner-spy could listen to the groans and confessions of the victim as the torture grew unbearable.
Another macabre chamber of torture is located at the Hague. Here was practiced the famous "Torture of the Dropping Water." The victim's head was placed in a vice, and drops of water were allowed to fall at constant intervals on the center of the skull. It is said that after a few minutes of this torture, the victim would become frantic under the horrible agony. Madness and death invariably followed.
Many torture devices may be found today in the ancient castle of Valitza, situated in a lonely spot in Armenia. This castle was at one time in the possession of a notorious bandit. It has been converted and is today a monastery for Grey Friars. A huge library has been collected here which deals solely with torture and torture methods. Horrible machines of death may be seen in profusion, many of them filled with the bones of those who stubbornly refused to tell the hiding place of their wealth . Vaults, studded with rusty spikes, chairs with their bottoms hollowed out in which victims were forced to sit on a bed of live coals, and racks of all descriptions line the walls.
The well known London Tower was at one time a place of torture . It was here that the "Scavenger's Daughter" was originated. This machine does credit to English ingenuity, because it got results. The victim's body was so horribly distorted by iron hoops that blood gushed from his nose and mouth and sometimes even from the hands and feet. At Halifax the torture methods were so cruel that the expression arose, "From Hell, Hull, and Hali[ 16}
fax, Good Lord, deliver us." In some parts of England, a man caught stealing an animal was executed on the scaffold by the animal he had stolen. This was achieved by forcing the animal to pull the pin releasing the trap door upon which the prisoner was standing. Ducking cages were used for bakers giving short weight, pinchers with a screw for tearing out tongues were used on blasphemers, and hundreds of other specific tortures were employed in England.
The Chinese had a torture which could result only in death. Victims were forced to swallow small bamboo shoots, which had the power of growing very rapidly. Once in the stomach cavity, these shoots began their deadly work. Slowly and with a torture that can scarcely be imagined they would pierce the stomach wall. This torture would continue until the victim died from sheer agony unless a vital organ were punctured.
In South America, sugar cane thieves were tortured for a confession in a rather picturesque manner. Alleged thieves were tied in a rope net suspended over a patch of fast-growing cane. The tops of this cane were cut off and iron spikes fitted on. The victim would have several hours to confess before the cane would have time to grow into his body.
Even a casual examination of the so-called "Third Degree" employed by law enforcement officials in the United States brings to light some interesting parallels with the older methods of inflicting punishment. Most of the following information was gathered from the Wickersham Commission Reports, published in 1931.
The "Third Degree" is a rather vague term denoting any trick, stunt, or manipulation of any kind that may be used to wrest the truth, or at least a confession from the prisoner. This usually takes place in the interim between
the arrival of the prisoner at the police station and the preliminary hearing at the police court.
From Mississippi comes an interesting account of the "Water Treatment" as employed upon alleged murderers to obtain confessions. The victim is placed upon his back and secured in that position. Water is poured slowly into his nostrils until he begins to strangle. At this time he is released for a moment, but if no results are obtained the same procedure takes place again. There is another account of the same method handled a bit differently in another part of the state. Here the victim was laid on the floor on his back, and a large man stood with one foot on his chest and the other on his throat. At the same time the "Water Treatment" was applied. Reminiscent of the "Water Treatment" of the Spanish Inquisition?
Numerous accounts came from various parts of the country in 1931, attesting the brutality to which prisoners are subjected. Arrested persons would come into the station houses in good physical condition, only to be seen later in the Tombs with bruises, cuts, and other indications of brutal treatment. Upon closer examination some of the victims were found to have broken ribs and badly lacerated bodies. On one occasion, two men accused of counterfeiting were brought before a Federal Judge. Their clothes were removed at his direction, displaying raw bruised backs, the result of a flogging at the hands of the Federal Agents and the city police, who used rubber hose for whips.
Many of the methods recently employed include: choking with a necktie, punching the face, rapping with a billy, whipping with a rubber hose, and severe kicks in the abdomen. Lavine lists several extreme methods in his book, The Third Degree. One of the most
[ 17}
interesting in this collection is similar to the old "torture of the dropping water." The victim is subjected to sharp raps upon his skull at regular intervals, so that the precision and regularity of the blows intensifies the torture by the victim's anticipation of the next blow. Another method is to assure the prisoner that he will not be harmed, then have him suddenly knocked unconscious by a blow from behind. Again he would be assured and again knocked unconscious. Milder methods are keeping the victim awake for long stretches of time without food, subjecting him all the while to a barrage of questions, and to play upon his nerves by telling him the horrible things that will happen to him if he refuses to confess.
The case of the People vs. Barbato in New York city is an interesting example of the evils of the third degree. Barbato was accused of strangling Julia Museo, and according to the defendant, was treated in the following manner: an officer struck him in the face, knocking him to the floor, when two others pulled him around by the hair and pelted him with their sticks. They kicked and cursed him and threatened to kill him if he refused to confess. At last he was forced to write "I killed Julia Museo" to save further abuse at the hands of the officers. It must be understood that prisoners are not always condemned on the strength
of information gained this way.
One case has been reported in which the torture inflicted was so severe that a surgeon was called to the side of the prisoner to take his pulse beat at intervals so as to determine how much more punishment he could stand.
An interesting method of obtaining con• fessions in one state runs as follows: The prisoner is ruffed up a bit by a few officers who play the "hard role.' They may go so far as to use abusive language and push him around the room, or show him rubber hose used for whips, but he is not actually tortured. When the prisoner is in a state of terror, and fearing some actual brutality, the "friendly" officer comes in and severely reprimands his rougher colleagues for their brutal methods. He then asks the prisoner if he is hungry and offers to order his favorite dish. This sudden change of attitude is supposed to win the confidence of the prisoner. If this does not work, stronger measures are taken.
The Third Degree seems to be entirely at home in Chicago. Methods employed here include the application of a rubber hose to the stomach or back, rapping the shins with a club, or striking the victim on the head with the Chicago telephone book, which makes a dwarf of the Richmond directory. Other methods include the use of tear gas, and hanging the prisoner up by his hands or feet.
Bells of night's songs Hushed on paling stars, Half turned near changing universe And me.
D.E. T.
[ 18]
What words your silence spoke, and where we stood
That night I asked your all, I can't remember. What music played and whom I wooed And nestled to my breast, I can't remember. Whose eyes I melted into mine that night And gently smoothed a tear, I can't remember. In. whose arms I lay to seek respite
From passion's angry plea, I can't remember. Whose hands I kissed and lips I pressed Into the depth of mine, I can't remember.
But this I know-
The moon made a halo for your hair.
The fading light of dying embers veiled your face . Your lilied breath, light-wafted on the air, Did dull my senses, till all did cease Except having you remember. But who you are and what I said, I can't remember.
DONALD
E. TRUMP.
By PAUL SAUNIER, JR.
ONCE UPON A TIME there was a little boy named Johnny. Now Johnny was a very brave little boy, and one day he decided to go traveling. So he started out from his house and had gone almost a whole mile, all downhill, when he saw a very pretty lake, and a sign that pointed to the left and said, ''Westhampton College." Well, Johnny kept right on, about thirty yards farther, until he saw some old steps going up a terraced hill. He thought that this looked interesting, so he decided to climb the steps.
When Johnny reached the top of the hill he saw in front of him a very dangerous-looking swamp, and on the other side of this swamp a great, big, gloomy-looking building. This building was of a dirty gray color, and reminded Johnny of a discarded barn. The swamp was very muddy and mushy, and Johnny could just see the tops of automobiles sunk in the deeper parts.
Well, Johnny was a very brave and daring boy, so daring that he decided to make his way across this strange marsh. He waded a little way in the mud, but soon found that he would have to swim across the deeper holes . Finally he had reached the other side after stopping to rest on some of the automobile tops, and my, was he muddy! Part of the swamp was reddish-colored, and part just muddy, and the colors were mixed on Johnny's clothes. , ~
Then Johnny went around the building. Seeing a large man with white hair that stood straight up, Johnny asked him what the building was. The large man, who was carrying a brief case, looked at him in a surprised manner and bellowed, "That's the Playhouse, Doc! Say yessir!"
Johnny was somewhat surprised, but he said "yessir" and the man went away looking satisfied.
Then, while Johnny was standing outside the building, looking at it and wondering how many horses were kept in it, the doors burst open and a shortish young man, wearing a dark suit, came tearing out, followed closely by three apple cores. Then three other young men appeared in the doorway and laughed very hard and slapped each others' backs and held their sides. The tallest of the three was laughing so hard that he fell down. Then a very slight, dark young man, wearing glasses, came out and pushed the other young men aside. He said something like, "This has got to stop!" Johnny was much surprised to see the young men immediately stop laughing, draw up together, assume very serious expressions while they put their right hands in their coats, and say in one voice, "Skronch you!" Then they fell into another laughing fit and rolled on the ground while the other young man jumped up and down and shouted some- , thing Johnny couldn't understand. [ 20}
Johnny thought this very strange indeed and he went on around the corner of the building. He saw that people were sticking their heads out of the large building and shouting strange things at all the people that passed. The heads popped in and out of the windows so fast that Johnny could hardly see them, and they shouted things like, "Dammit, get that story in on time for a change!" or "Meeting at twelvethirty. Be there!" or "Where have you been this week, you loafer?" They shouted contin~ally something about "Get your proofs" and "Skronch."
Johnny was much amazed at this, but just then a path across a beautiful lawn caught his attention. This pretty scene seemed so strange compared to what he had seen so far that he decided to walk up the path and look at the large brick building with the boarded-up windows which he could see in the distance.
As he walked toward this large, red brick building, he noticed a group of hatless young men, 1ying on the grass in various positions, who jeered loudly at all people who passed. Johnny thought this was very rude, so he asked an important-looking young man who approached who the other young men were. The man, whose coat was unbuttoned and held back by safety-pins, had a lot of oddly-shaped pieces of metal strung on a chain across his vest, and he always played with them as he talked. He said that the young men on the grass were "freshmen." Johnny thanked him, and the young man said, "You' re quite welcome, old man. Just remember me when Student Government elections come around.''
Johnny didn't know what to make of this, but he passed it up and went on.
As he came nearer the big red brick building he saw that the windows weren't boarded up at all, but that the glass in them was so dirty it just didn't look like glass any more. On the
grass around the building there were a lot of short little sticks with funny writing on them. Johnny picked up one and saw the word POPSICLE but he didn't know what it meant.
Well, Johnny, as we have said, was a very brave little boy, and so now he decided to investigate this strange building. He opened the first door he found, and went up all the stairs he could find inside. He then saw that he was in front of a big door that said LIBRARY. He opened the door and went in. He walked d?wn the big room and saw a lot of people reading. "Ah," thought Johnny. "Here are some real people. See how hard they are studyI"mg.
They were studying books which Johnny had never seen before, and he decided that they must be very hard books, because all the people were reading them so hard. They were large, thin, flexible books with titles like Ballyhoo1 Hooey, Spicy, and True Confessions.
Johnny turned around and went back out. He went down all the stairs he could find, and discovered that he was in a very dark hall. He could hear some one talking, so he felt his way along the hall in the darkness until he could understand what the voice was saying . It said "Knock him down! Not once, but half a dozen times! Knock him down!''
Poor Johnny quaked in his boots. Some one was being taken for a ride by some gangsters! No, that couldn't be. They were standing still. But something was wrong! Some one was being hurt! And Johnny knew that it wasn't the place for him. Just then the voice shouted "Quickly! Quickly!" and Johnny ran up the steps as fast as he could go.
When he got outside, he calmed down, and when he heard a young man who passed him shout to another some distance away, 'Tm going to Spanish class!", Johnny decided to follow him and se~ what a Spanish class was.
[ 21]
As they were walking along, Johnny saw a thick cloud of smoke approaching them from the other direction. As the smoke drew nearer, he saw that in the middle of it there was a rotund little man with a mustache. This little man was blowing into a sort of firebox which rested on his chest while he stoked it with one hand. It was from this firebox that the smoke was commg.
As the smoke covered them and the man passed, the man said cheerily, "How are you, neighbor?"
Johnny passed this up as he had the metalbearing man's remark, and followed the young man ahead of him through a door marked "C." There was so little light in the room that at first Johnny could see nothing but a few feeble light bulbs that shone over him and some faint bits of light coming through the parts of the windows that were not completely covered with cobwebs. As he grew accustomed to the light he saw that the room was full of young men sleeping on regularly-placed piles of old wood and metal. Finally one of them awoke, turned around, and said, "Twenty-of." The whole crowd awoke immediately and stormed out of the door.
, Johnny wasn't hurt, but he was carried about fifty yards by the rush. He got up and walked back to the building to see if there was anything else that he was interested in. There was a sleeping colored man holding a broom at the door of the building, and Johnny went over and asked the man what the building was. Without waking up the man said "Adminustrayshun Billdin."
Just then two young men came out of the door, and one of them said, very sadly, "No, I wish I could, but I've got to go to Jim." Johnny heard this, and he liked the looks of the young men, so he decided to help him out.
Johnny was a very helpful little boy, and he thought that maybe he could go over and see this Jim that was making the nice-looking young man so sad and perhaps help the young man out. So he followed the young man down a path over to another big red brick building. When they came to the building, Johnny saw five very tough-looking men come out of the door and stamp down the steps. At first he thought they were gangsters, but then he remembered that gangsters were smart, and these men certainly didn't look smart! So he couldn't imagine what they were. All five of them wore sweaters with big red R's on their fronts, and four of them were counting big rolls of bills. These four seemed very pleased, but the other man, who had no money, seemed very mad, and as he passed Johnny he said in a mean tone, "Oh, hell, I'll go to William and Mary!''
Johnny decided that he had had enough of this strange place, so he set off immediately for the place where he had come in. As he passed the building which the old man had told him was a "Playhouse" he saw the same three young men running around outside and throwing water on each other. They were shouting "Skronch!" at a fourth young man, who shoutted back at them in the clipped tones of a radio announcer. They just threw water on him and departed over the horizon.
Johnny was much disgusted at this ungentlemanly behavior, and was thinking about how degrading it was when he noticed three young men looking at his shirt front with great interest. One of them came up to him and said , pleasantly, "Have you pledged a frat?" Johnny said that he had not.
The three young men immediately seized him and dragged him over into some bushes on the other side of the gray building. They threw him on the ground and two of them held
[ 22}
him down while the third pinned a little metal badge on him. Then they pinched him and told him to say "I do" after they had recited something all together. They pinched him until he said it, and when he did they shook hands with him and told him that there would be a meeting Wednesday night. Then they left.
Johnny got up and waded across the mire as fast as he could. He found some shallow places this time and didn't have to swim, so he made
good time. When he got to the other side he ran down the hill as fast as he could and started home. As he ran he puffed to himself that would never, never, never again leave home to go to such a crazy place, where they had pretty lawns and funny-looking buildings and pinned things on strangers and threw things at each other.
1'
(Johnny's further adventures will be continued in our next issue.)
In the lonely void above the earth
Not quite at heaven's gate, Dwell the souls of those for earth too soon, For heaven, just too late.
There the pangs of misfit visions, Too good for their place in things, Make futilely helpless creatures of Angels with leaden wings.
They see with the eyes of a seraph The faults in things below But, try as they may to right them, Their models of things won't go.
Condemned to an endless longing For power to right life's wrong. They are men just short of perfect, Or Saints who don't belong.
ROBERT J.MARTIN,
III.
[ 23}
<< 'ROUNDAND AROUND >>
a Reoiew olRec~ded ?nusic
By STUART GRAHAM
A WOMAN'S HAT may be as ugly as a mud fence. It may even bear striking resemblance to a mud fence-but if it is in style, it will be admired by countless other women, and the shops will have a hard time keeping it in stock. Such is the role played by fashions in modern civilization. Chameleon-like changes are just as evident in the style of popular music as in women's fashions. Since the recordings appearing over any specific period of time offer the best cross-section of musical trends, we have recently haunted the record shops in an effort to keep abreast of the latest modes in dance melody.
Tricky vocals seem to be all the rage this season. Where in other years a record's chances for popularity were rated on, successively, its heat, its sweetness, or its swing, the emphasis today rests largely upon attractiveness in vocal arrangement.
Tommy Dorsey's Marie started the cycle last spring. Tom took an old tune, one that never reached the top in its hey-dey, and by unique vocal treatment brought forth a version so fresh and attractive that it set dance-lovers on their collective ears. It's a matter of history now that Marie enjoyed one of the most sensational sales in the last decade. And, from the reports we hear, it's still going strong.
Among Victor's current releases is one that has been labelled the "successor to Marie. )) The arrangements are almost identical, but if you believe that Dorsey can't click twice in so short a period, you seriously underestimate Mr. Dorsey. The treatment, if anything, is bet-
ter. The tune is Who J the old familiar Who you've been humming lo, these many years. While the velvet voice of Jack Leonard carries the melody, the ensemble supplies, Marie style, vocal interjections-and the interjections are every bit as clever as Marie) s. The instrumental handling of the number gives Mr. Dorsey ample opportunity to toy with his trombone-merely an added inducement to the prospective buyer.
Reversely we have Dipsy-Doodle) a weird sample of modern swing novelty, with the most nonsensical set of vocals since KnockKnock. The arrangement is intricate, the rhythm is mean, and the full effects of the brass are ample to cover any deficiency in melody matter. It's not a swing classic, but it's good dance. VICTOR No . 25693 .
1' 1' 1'
Decca makes its bid for vocal recognition in the Bing Crosby engraving of Bob-White. After looking over the combination of Crosby, Connie Boswell, and the Johnny Trotter band, we unhesitatingly predict a slam. The CrosbyBoswell duet is the most appealing we've heard in many a moon, and the "pecking" sequence on the last chorus strikes a note of genuine originality. Bing's impressions always rate high mention, but this one hits the peak. We were so taken with Bob-White that we almost forgot Basin Street Blues on tbe other side. Nevertheless, it deserves more than passing mention. Bing, of all the modern crooners, seems to succeed best in putting across that semblance of genuineness and graciousness in his effortless delivery. And our guess is that [ 24}
you'll be hearing great things of John Scott Trotter and his aggregation in the not too distant future. DECCA No. 1483.
i i i
Although vocals are spotlighted as never before, there are plenty of top-flight bands that depend on good old-fashioned instrumental excellence to put across their numbers. Horace Heidt, for one, although he has one of the best glee clubs in the business, need rely on nothing but his horn-tooters and rhythm thumpers to charm his public. And Tommy Dorsey, cited above for vocal accomplishment, could go far with only his excellent arrangers and his talented swing unit. Russ Morgan, trombone virtuoso, is a third member of this category.
Hot Lips and Bells of St. Mary's 1 latest of the all too infrequent Heidt offerings, is a perfect example of the modern semi-concert style in the rendition of popular music. And anyone who hears either of the tunes will be forced to admit that the style has its points. The Hot Lips bit is played like Henry Busse never
trast, his triple tongueing trumpets. On top of that he throws in a dash of solo singers, and caps it off with his glee club. The novelty is an unusual offering, well adapted to the Heidt variety of show-band. BRUNSWICK No. B7916.
i i i
Basin Street Blues continues to be recorded by everyone from Whiteman to the Maple City Four, but we can't pass it by when it's done up in that melodious Morgan Manner. The instrumental quirks that Russ always manages to work into his orchestrations are strikingly apparent in this release. As final proof that it is to be the last word in Basin Street pressings, the number has been divided into two parts. Sweetly rolled saxophones take care of part one, with interpolations by Morgan's muted trombone adding brilliant color. Part two is sweet swing, featuring light riding in ingeniously doubled tempo by the tenor sax, as well as a clarinet that rivals Goodman's. Morgan again does skillful justice to himself on the trombone. BRUNSWICK No. B7941. played it, and that's no reflection on Busse,
1 1 i either. Opening with a triple tongueing se- For those who take their swing without quence by the three talented trumpeters, the sugar or cream, Victor's comparatively new arrangement maintains a level that is difficult Swing Album is just what the physician preto surpass. Outstanding in the orchestration is scribed. The collection consists of four twelvethe part played by the concert trumpet, which inch records, each of which plays a full five emerges from the background from time to minutes a side. Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, time and climbs all over the scale. The pre- Fats Waller, and Bunny Berigan are the concision of the orchestra, one of the larger mod- tributing artists. em dance bands, is little short of remarkable, The tunes are aptly selected to illustrate the and the staccato effects produced by trumpe- distinctive styles of each of the artists. Benny ters Sidney Mear, Jerry Brown, and Norman offers Sing Sing Sing in two parts (VICTOR Kingsley, are tricky stuff. No. 36205); Dorsey revives his popular Stop 1 Heidt has used the Bells as a vehicle for his Look 1 and Listen of a few seasons back and " Building a Band" novelty. He starts the melo- adds a jigger of old-time blues built around dy in his rhythm section, and adds in turn a the familiar Beale Street thesis; Waller emsinging guitar, a smoothly-coordinated sax phasizes his most renowned composition, team, a trombone, fiddles, and, by way of con- Honeysuckle Rose (VICTOR No. 36207) and [ 25}
gives his rhythm free rein in Blue Turning Gray Over You (VICTOR No. 36206), and Berigan couples his famous I Can't Get Started theme with The Prisoner's Song. (VICTOR No. 36208). ·
Selecting two of these offerings for specific mention is quite a job, but of the four we consider the Goodman and Dorsey disks perhaps the most outstanding. Sing Sing Sing is right down the middle of the swing groove Krupa fans will be delighted with the arrangement, as it allows him one full chorus of nothing but drums-and Gene really makes the most of the opportunity. The "organized" swing of Part One is made to order for the superlative Goodman brass section. Part Two is more intricately handled, opening with a very hot tenor sax ride. There is a blistering trumpet chorus, and Goodman takes his clarinet strolling in
the tropic sun.
Stop, Look, and Listen furnished motivation for Dorsey's free trombone interpretations superimposed on a background of cymbals. The clarinet is next spotlighted, with three trombones adding the impression of fullness. After a series of intricate breaks, the number ends with a tenor sax solo and a passage executed with mutes by the entire brass section. Beale Street, in bona fide jig tempo, is handled with finesse by the competent sax team, with Dorsey frisking as expected on the trombone . The solo trumpet hits some extremely high notes to add sparkle to the arrangement.
Also recommended: Roses in December and Let's Have Another Cigarette. Bunny Berigan and his Orchestra.
Smoky Sunday in a dingy room, Tall buildings rising through the gloom, And you and I alone.
Your copper head is light and you are gay, You don't remember cares of yesterday, And if you do, they' re gone. Your vitality, your tall fine length, Your overbounding, highstrung nervous strength, They all are full of grace. And yqu are raised above and held aloof, This dingy room, dank walls and blackened roof, By elfishness of face.
KIRA NICHOLSKY.
.lllLtAe9'1iGq)Jue4
YOUNG HENRY OF NAVARRE. By Heinrich Mann. Translated from the German by Eric Sutton. Alfred A. Knopf. New York. 585 pp. $3.
The age of Henry of Navarre, virulent, passionate, high-tempered, yet glittering with laughter and tears, is brought to life with every essence as powerful as the original by Heinrich Mann in his long, epic, biographical novel, which promises to become a best-seller.
With amazing clarity and simplicity of style, the author covers the brief span of years comprising Henry's childhood and youth-years of mob rule and terrorism dictated by a treacherous Queen Mother of France, Catherine de Medici. Henry, as a child, emerges from the comparative seclusion of his kingdom in the Pyrenees to be thrust into the bitter intrigues and petty schemes around which court life at Paris revolved. It was an era of ext remes which wreaked havoc upon men, nations, and continents. For twenty years Henry was stifled by passions stained with the blood of his countrymen. The richness of the court in contrast to the w retchedness of the commoners appalled the King o f Navarre and gradually opened his eyes to the r ealization that there must be a united, peaceful France , and that it was he upon whom the responsibility for bringing about this change lay .
After the knowledge of this fact was firm in the soul of Henry, the death of his beloved mother, Queen Jeanne, at the hands of Madame Catherine, established his purpose as if with steel rivets. The bloody massacre of Saint Bartholomew, in which many of Henry ' s closest Huguenot followers were brutally slain, served only to strengthen his resolve. His marriage , by which he became heir to the F rench throne, and subsequent shameful mal-treatment by order from the Queen Mother, molded Henry ' s character into the noblest in the land. His love for Margot, his wife , though his affairs were numerous, remained the one tangible element of his tumultuous life in Paris.
During the brief reigns of the first two sons of the de Medici, Navarre submitted to his fate , but when the weak, cowardly, jealous Henry III ascended his throne, Navarre returned to his small kingdom and , with the aid of both Huguenots and Catholics, set up his court at Nerac. Destined to
govern there by force of arms for ten years, Henry steadily gained the hearty, vigorous love of his southern people, so that when the Catholic League, promoted by the powerful Duke of Guise and Philip of Spain, threatened to set up its own government shortly before the death of Henry Valois, Navarre lacked no support necessary in establishing his claim to the crown of a France upon which he was to bestow the greater crown of peace.
With a superb delicacy of perception, Mann reveals ·the intensity of the period, as refreshingly as if the story had never been told. All the grim magnificence of the gray old warriors and the canny ministers stands out in rugged relief against the purity of soul of Henry and the physical beauty of Margot. The horror and nobility of the death of Admiral Coligny on the eve of Saint Bartholomew is painted with sweeping brush strokes.
The book stands as if forever-a brilliant work by a brilliant author, Henrich Mann.
MIL LEE FORD. f f
PEDLAR'S PROGRESS . By Odell Shepard. Little , Brown & Company. New York. 430 pp. $3 . .
"It is significant that we choose our national heroes chiefly from those who have most vigorously set heart and hand to the mastery and gathering of materi a l things and that we neglect the smaller but no less American number who have somehow kept that light of the mind, that holy flame in the heart, with which we began ." This statement is the indictment that Mr. Odell Shepard brings against the American people in the foreword to his biography, P edl ar' s Progress , about the life and works of Amos Bronson Alcott who kept burning this light of the mind.
Mr. Shepard brings Bronson Alcott out of the o blivion of the shadow cast by his world-famous daughter . In spite of heavy sections of retrospect and too long personal comments, through Shepard ' s story of the progress of a pedlar which is packed with fact, vision , and interpretation , Alcott becomes dynamic and living-almost, we might say, he becomes a personal experience, so clearly can we visualize him tramping about the country, North , South, and East, and peddling not only material objects but id eas.
Alcott belonged to the brilliant, intellectual New England age of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau, Walt Whitman, and William Ellery Channing. He was born on a farm in Connecticut in 1 799 and lived almost into the twentieth cen[ 27}
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tury, dying in 1888. Intoxicated with love for travel and the country, he first made his appearance as a "pedlar of Yankee notions" in the South, whose easy grace and atmosphere he came to love. In his own Connecticut he began teaching, but at the age of twenty-eight he turned to peddling his ideas in Boston. His work was in a sense an obsession rather than a gainful occupation. Alcott's teachings were theoretically wise, but they were practically unwise. His mind had nothing of the practical bent, accounting for the fact that his family was eternally in debt; yet, in no man was generosity nearer personification than in Alcott.
A teaching genius such as Alcott could not be submerged, even when the pressure of opposition closed his private school. He then turned his talents to adults, becoming the apostle of a new idealistic philosophy; in the drawing room, parlor, town hall, and private home he held his conversations. Never a formal lecturer, he drew out ideas from his audience, and endeavored to stimulate them, rather than impregate their minds unwillingly with his own philosophic theories.
Partly through his association with the dynamic Wm. Lloyd Garrison and partly because Alcott felt the tide of his age, he at length took up the cause of reform; the society of minds which he gathered about him, the transcendentalists, championed the anti-slavery cause and for several years Alcott devoted his great talking genius and immense energy to this movement.
· As his fervor against slavery cooled and his interest turned into other channels, he became obsessed with a desire to put his ideas into practice; hence, he advanced upon a period of experimental living which was to end ultimately in failure, this being largely due to his lack of balance between theory and practice.
After the failure of this experiment, Alcott moved into the most physically and mentally mature period of his life. He was old in years but young in spirit-his interest in his America became more disinterested and objective than it had ever been. Now he found the people and culture of his time fascinating; to the end his chief pleasure and greatest happiness was the cultivation of youth and the enjoyment of a society of the minds about him.
Bronson Alcott is the figure of whom Emerson said, "I have never seen his equal." Thoreau called him "the sanest man I ever knew," and Hawthorne spoke of him with these words: "There was no man . . . whose mere presence, the mere language of whose look and manner, wrought such an impres-
sion." Alcott's life was indeed a paradox in living; his circumference was from Yankee peddling to the Concord School of Philosophy, from a radical village school teacher to one of the greatest champions of reform and idealistic living. Ahead of his time in the major fields of education, religion, psychology, and sociology, Alcott could never bring about an adaptation of this vision into the future with the demands of ordinary living. In his own day, he was considered a crank; today he is recognized as a prophetic genius, more a part of our age than his own.
And it is not surprising that Mr. Odell Shepard won with his Pedlar's Progress the Little, Brown & Company publisher's prize out of 306 competing manuscripts submitted for the most distinguished and outstanding work of the year.
JuuA F. McCLURE. f f f
TO HA VE AND HA VE NOT. By Ernest Hemingway. Charles Scribner's Sons. New York. 262 pp. $2.50.
The appearance of Ernest Hemingway's first novel in eight years is like the second coming of a master who has returned with all liis old spirit but with new tactics. Having learned from his two previous novels to expect merely good yarns told in his adamant style, Mr. Hemingway's readers may expect a jolt with To Have and Have Not. While his story still packs a potent punch, the prince of realism tells it in a different way. In short, Mr. Hemingway has attained literary maturity with an awakened social consciousness.
Harry Morgan, central figure in the present work, is a native of Key West, Florida, where the "haves" and the "have nots" present a strong contrast. He carries on a lone struggle to keep himself, his wife, his daughters from joining the "have nots." With his fast motor boat, he carries fishing parties, runs guns, liquor, human contraband. His lone-wolf philosophy, his hardness and uncompromising stand, his lack of pity for himself or for anyone else, all are portrayed with graphic reality.
Mr. Hemingway's social consciousness first shows itself in his treatment of the "haves" of the Key West region, the wealthy yacht-owners and their wastrel associates. The contrast of Morgan with these folk of another level is marred by the author's manner of working it into the story. The impression gotten is that he was in too great a hurry to integrate the weaklings into Morgan's life with customary smoothness. Although this minor mat-
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ter of style does not detract materially from the whole, it does lessen the force of the picture. The shifting of point of view becomes a little confusing and tiring.
Episodic and swiftly-moving, the story is told and Morgan is seen through his own words and thoughts, through the eyes of Albert, his friend, through Morgan's loyal but puzzled wife. Never has Mr. Hemingway depicted character so strongly . Bullying, profane Harry Morgan stands out clearly and sharply. No less alive are the scenes of the action. The waterfront atmosphere has been done in the author's crisp prose which accomplishes the maximum result with a minimum of words.
To Have and Have Not is strongly realistic. For sheer force and depth of perception, it stands out clearly among the books of the year and among all the Hemingway books. From The Sun Also Ris es to the present work is a long way. Mr. Hemingway has forsaken Paris and the effete drunks of the old world for the virile characters of his home country. Authenticity in his latest novel is vouched for by his having lived for several years in Key West.
Io To Have and Have Nat the author has presented a pleasing antidote for the overabundance of sweetness and light currently making itself felt.
J.H. KELLOGG.
SOUTH BY THUNDERBIRD. By Hudson Strode. Illustrated. Random House. New York. 388 pp. $3.
In an interesting saga Hudson Strode gives the world a fascinating picture of life in South America, besides adding a notable contribution in bringing Americans an intelligent picture of the real land to the South. South By Thundefbird was written by a man who keenly felt that the western hemisphere may be spared the terrible disaster of European war experiences by an intelligent and harmonious understanding between South and North America. With its vast and necessary resources, peoples awakening to a sense of power, this land has much to offer all America.
As the "Thunderbird," the name given the airplane by the natives, carries him over the varied and primitive country, Strode affords one a "bird'seye" glimpse of South America, which after two centuries of semi-civilization, is now experiencing a renaissance into modern industrialism, led by Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina. Their trip may seem necessarily rather full of glimpses with little
detail, but in reality, there is a remarkable amount of exposition about each place that the author visits. This can be accounted for only by his keen perception and observation. His contacts with the people of the country enable one to see the real attitude of South America.
A travelogue is oftentimes difficult to write in an enlivening fashion. South By Thunderbird, however, is well written and contains enough of the life of the conqueror of South America, the immortal Pizzaro, to interest the reader in the history of the country. His intimate comments on unusual things serve to heighten attractiveness. He tells of the natives' awe at the conqueror of the air. One native chief was so desirous of obtaining an airbird like the white man's that he sent two of his bravest warriors to obtain some eggs of the bird to hatch and rear for use in warfare. Such ref erences as these prove diverting.
This work is rich with many beautiful passages. One has only to glance at Strode ' s description of the fairy-like harbor of Rio de Janeiro to realize the delicate treatment that he has given it. The mountains sloping down to the water's edge, mingling with the blue ocean, viewed in a ruddy sunset, are strikingly depicted. The picture of awe-inspiring Andes, with the Christ standing in eternal splendor in ice clad surroundings, is indeed fine composition.
South by Thunderbird may also give a lesson to South America. As the author visits Buenos Aires, with all its modernity, he is impressed with the primitive social code that still exists in even the most progressive of the countries of South America. Women are not allowed on the streets of Brazil with a male escort. The sharp distinction between the lower class "gaucho" and the landed gentry is astounding to any intelligent American The peasant has nothing and the landlord has everything. Certainly this book is a plea for more social equality in a country where the large middle class has yet to arise.
To the Western Hemisphere the author adds a note of cheer. In heartily endorsing the policies of Secretary Hull and President Roosevelt, Strode says that the "Good Neighbor" policy is the only plan that will preserve a friendly understanding between the United States and South America. This book is undoubtedly a great tribute to the present administration for its foreign policy. Strode, here, has done the impossible, in improving on two other great books, The Story of Be r muda and The Pageant of Cuba. BEN McCLURE.
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SO YOU THINK IT'S NEW. By Wilfred J. Funk. Funk and Wagnalls Company. New York. 208 pp. Illustrated. $2.00.
This time of year, the college "bull session" is likely to turn to football. But it is unlikely that the boys will associate that sport with Caesar's invasion of Britain in 5 5 B. C. It does seem a bit incongruous yet it is true that the legionnaires of Rome entertained themselves with a game of football as soon as they had fortified their camp. "To understand the plays," we read, "one would have to be a combination Lou Little and Grantland Rice, and know the rules of English Rugby and the American game, for this one comprises the two with a melange of kicks and forward passes, blocking and tackling, that would go well in the California Rose Bowl.
"One of our earliest dictionary makers, Julius Pollux, writing in the second century A. D. sketches out for us the rudiments of the Roman game. 'The players divide themselves into two bands. The ball is placed upon a line between them. At the two ends of the field, behind the line upon which the players are stationed, are two other lines, beyond which these two strive to carry the ball.' "
Women are always subject to discussion, and one of the boys might be heard to remark that he "hates a girl, who must always be repairing her paint-job." His is quite an old problem. "If Phyllis of the twentieth century makes up in public," we are told, "you had better let her. Damn it! She's been told not to do it through the ages! Old Ovid warned her in his Art of Love: 'A statue is never shown until it is finished.' "
Another lad may mention that he "can't stand too much make-up." For that chap: "In fourthcentury Syria, John Chrysostom ... said: 'If anyone were painting the ideal body to house the soul of an ideal woman, he wouldn't dream of fashioning a face that had bloody lips like the mouth of a bear, or sooty eyebrows that look as though they came from a dirty pot.' " And toenails and fingernails painted a deep, modern red were "all the rage around the fall of 3000 B. C."
There is the stuff of many "sessions" in Funk's new, little book, So You Think It's New. A cleverly written, cleverly illustrated volume, it deals with all the complex situations and problems of today and proves very entertainingly that "it's all happened before." One could list hundreds of facts from the book that would excite curiosity. Even the
chapter-heads do that: "Tammany Hall of Athens; They Knew Their Medicine Too; The Banks of the Euphrates; Funny Money" and others. If you're at all interested in how things began, here is the answer, witty and accurate. The "bull session" addict won't be the only one, who will laugh and learn something in reading Mr. Funk's work; his date and his family will probably borrow it from him, before he can finish scanning it.
E~eAindfAe i3,1f-£ine
For some time now NATAL YE BABCOCK has been airing her views on a matter close to her heart. When we requested a story, she graciously gave us her self-styled tirade "Twilight of the Gods." We hope to be able to publish a man's reply to this article. Will some one volunteer to write it?
... Minister's son PAUL WATLINGTON should know whereof he speaks. His featurestory style reflects his training on the staff of the Collegian, where he serves as Managing Editor.
... We immodestly believe that in KIRA NICHOLSKY we have found a writer who displays rare feeling and expression. Her Russian background projects itself into her intriguing conversation and keenly emotional writing, both of which have the distinctive Continental flavor. When ROYALL BRANDIS was interviewed, he said with his tongue deep in his cheek, "My cogent reasoning is well known on the campus."
Westhampton freshman MIL LEE FORD, who has long had literary interests, finds herself in print for the first time in our magazine. JULIA McCLURE has laid aside her executive duties at Westhampton College Government President for the moment to contribute her book review.
... STUART GRAHAM resumes his series of reviews of phonograph recordings, which feature was favorably received last year. J. Stuart is, of all things, a math major. Because of his fine sonnet ,we cannot help being somewhat incredulous of EDWARD WALKER'S being "a beginner at poetry." He ·says, paradoxically, that "I hate- to read it, but I like to write it." . . . PAUL SAUNIER, News Editor of the Collegian, confesses a part in the horse-play, of which he writes with merry good wit. W.R. HUDGINS writes "as a form of diversion, not with any definite idea of following this line of work after graduation."
pipefuls of fragrant tobacco in every 2-oz. tin of Prince Albert JUST 'THIN THERE ARE 2 CIERS FLOWING S EXTINCT CRAiE
WINTER'S EiERN DER TO SPRING. THIS BRAVE FLOWERS WAY
20 fragrant pipefuls of Prince Albert. If you don't find it the mellowest, tastiest pipe tobacco you ever smoked, return the pocket tin with the rest of the tobacco in it to us at any time within a month from this date, and we will refund full purchase price, plus postage. (Signed) R. J.
