Judge — October 8, 1921 — page 18: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE DOUGHBOYS OF THE RHINE W E grew so pen- sive over the doughboys on the Rhine! Sena- tors made speeches about recalling them from foreign service; editorials were written and poems of passionate sadness printed about them. Far from home and kindred they pined, young eaglets wrenched from the brood, lonely ex- iles pining on an alien strand, etc. Suddenly our solicitude sagged with a puncture. The serene poise of the doughboys on the Rhine loomed with large eloquence. They looked like men who had found compensa- tion for the misfortune of estrange- ment—like devotees in the presence of that which they tenderly loved. Then the whisper passed that their pay was equal to twenty dollars daily, and that the barges splashed alony the beauteous Rhine just as they splashed so nobly in Auld Lang Syne. Thus the foreign legion lost our pity and won our envy. It is a privi- leged class. It enjoys without de- lights denied within. It is content. The Germans are content. The mar- riage statistics show that the frau- liens are content. But here there is rising discontent. There is a rustle toward the enlistment office, and when the facts percolate there is likely to arise a wild clamor for foreign service. LOAF OR LABOR UNANIMOUSLY HENRY FORD says that his rail- road pays because “we ended the loafing of cars, locomotives and men.” This was the primi- tive method. Were re- strictions removed from the professional railroads, perhaps they, too, could eliminate loafing. Official supervision has lost its in- novating charm and begins to itch like a monumental imposition. If we propose to officially yoke our ideas into public ease the principle should pervade all our acts. In calm conformity we would ask officials to fix our scale, holidays and hair-cuts. Life would be standardized, and, just as many religions have the same prayer, our citizens could sip the same soup and loaf with the same abandon. Our fleering mules are made docile by bundles of official alfalfa. Which encourages many heels to waggle with symptoms of kicking down the barn. The animation with which we ss bounteous dispensation dis- ses the drudgery of production, and we are ready to unanimously em- brace the good-natured theory that wages flow from the ingenuity of official executives. HOUSING THE FLIVVER HERE is no housing shortage for flivve The birds of the air may lose their nests, the beasts of the field their lairs, and man droop deftly on a barbed wire fence. But the automobile is walled from the winds and stalled from the stealer. There were many loose and foolish ob- servations about the cause and cure of the housing short- age. It never oc- curred to any au- thority that if we required the houses permanently they would be built promptly. But it oc- curred very acutely to every owner of a machine that his money must be covered. Therefore garages loomed in backyards, while porches and cel- lars opened hospitable arms to cuddle the investment. Were a keen analyst of character to dwell with discernment upon our volubility over dwellings and our erective energy over garages, he would construct a fine problem in psychology. Who Bibs For GLory? THE British Government offers Runnymede for sale as “Lot No. 8, of the Crown Lands.” Runny- mede—mere real estate—the Valhalla of all the law in the English tongue! God save us! We could never do this. Were we to turn Independence Hall into a hotel all the Aeolian harps would be twanged with hammers and all the blasts would blow. We do not want to tinkle our ukuleles boastingly. But, hardened as we are with materialism, we could not let the bats build in our sen- timental belfries and turn Mount Vernon to the cow-herds and Gettys- burg to the auctioneer. The powers of the understanding—the over- powering emotion of patriotism—are feeble without symbols. Contempla- tici: of the shrines of his- tory embellishes the mind, and elevates ideals. Our policy of making parks of Valley Forge and Chickamauga, and Meccas of Bunker Hill and Ply- mouth Rock, is noble. The deeds of our fathers are not mere marks in the sand.