Judge — December 16, 1922 — page 15: what you’re looking at

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

| J. A. Waldron William Morris Houghton EDITORIAL Who's Hooded in America? UDGE has earned the right to point with pride to pro- J fundities that have appeared in Lestie’s, and hence it wishes toremind thereader that six monthsago (spec! ly in the issue of June 10, 1922), Lestie’s, having previously printed articles exposing the activities of the Klan, called for legislation to make public the membership of the Ku Klux Klan. Such a measure is now being powerfully agitated in New York State and elsewhere. It is a logical, sensible and constitutional method of attack upon an organization as un-American as the Inquisition—far more sensible and effective than the threats and procedure of our pet little drive-them-out boys, Governor Allen of Kansas and Mayor Hylan of New York Ci No one of the United States should incorporate an organization of its citizens whose membership list is not Sccrecy of membership should be considered as prima facie evidence that the objects of the organization are illegitimate or criminal. Masks, too, should he abolished, or their wearers licensed and tagged like automo- hiles to insure their responsibility to the public. All this is simply social prophylaxis. Its precedent is the Pure Food and Drugs Ac Every man who claims a content of 100 per cent. Americanism should be so labeled. r sanction open to public inspection Progress HE present theatrical season in New York is probably the most brilliant in its history, which means in Amer- can history. This is not to say that it is the most pros- perous—we have no figures to indicate its financial status. But in the quality of plays and acting offered and in the public enthusiasm and discussion they are provoking, it easily takes first prize. What is the answer? Have our morons, whose taste hitherto has dictated the selection of our shows, suddenly suffered an access of intellect, or our theatrical managers a change of heart? Either seems highly improbable, since the stimuli which govern these two groups are not sub to change. Jupcr has another explanation which he wishes to offer for what it is worth, namely, that the improvement of the speaking stage may be traced to the movies. We have heard and read first and last an immense amount of vituperation and ridicule aimed at the movies, their agents and devotees, much of it justified. But who has ever given the movies credit for withdrawing from the speaking stage and pre-empting for their own just that species of cheap dramatic hokum for which they are most criticized? The legitimate theater can no longer compete with them in the presentation of this type of show, for obvious reasons. It is being forced, therefore, to making a specialty of plays whose content is too subtle or too sophisticated for the screen and its fans—it is being kicked upstairs. So much for the improvement in plays. For the improve- ment in acting the speaking stage owes the movies a more direct debt. The movies permit an actor to see himself as others see him. It has discouraged ranting; it has made fashionable the under emphasis of emotion which we associate with real life. The speaking stage has had to conform. All of which simply proves that the world do movie. The Retort Curious AN INGE, of St. Paul's, London, has described America as a “‘self-complacent, self-righteous nation which is convinced, as the Germans were convinced in 1914, that its ‘kultur’ is the only civilization worth havin He even expresses the belicf that “Americans are likely to turn British and French towns into duplicates of ‘Main Street.” Jupce hates to subtract even a moicty from total of pessimism in which the Gloomy Dean revels. theless, it is his duty respectfully to inquire whether the Dean's knowledge of Main Street was not derived from the book of that nam If so, is he aware that although “Main Stree y-man, American kultur, it has been sold in this country to the tune of half a million This is hardly an indication of that self-compls the sum Never- virtually disembowels his b copies? ney of which he compl. In any case, does it become an E) self-comp! y and self-righteousness of others? those who live in glass houses tie the bull outside? Out of the Bowl EWSPAPER accounts of the Harvard-Yale football N game differed, of course, with each individual writer, but a condensed and composite report would have read something like this: New Haven, Nov, 2 boys from Cambridge in- vaded the owl to-day 1 Jones's Elis look bke a bunch of white elephants. The tally was 10 to 3. glishman to talk of the Or should ably gathered from the head- ryptic phrases were intended led to know why and the other to a For his benefit The uninitiated reader pre lines the main facts which these to tell, but undoubtedly he is still pu belonged to a coach named Fishe tad named Jones, and not to Harvard and Yale. Jupce wishes to explain that the members of a football eleven still belong to the college from which they are recruited, but only as individual students. As players they are indentured to the professional person who trains them in the tactics and strategy of the field and it is he whom primarily they represent on the gridiron. In confirmation of which we wish to cite the little speech delivered by Tad Jones at the student rally in New Haven just preceding the annual football classic. “This team,” he , meaning the one he had recruited from among Yale men, “has all my confidenc When it takes the field Saturday it will talk for me and for Y: One can't help wondering, however, whether if it had talked for Yale first it would not have made its conversation more intelligible. The Sky's the Limit HE day was blue overhead except where the winter sun (Tossivei your eyeballs with golden needles. But it takes more than Nature to lift New Yorkers’ chins, and here they were, millions of them, apparently imitating Clemenceau, gazing at the tall buildings. Their mimicry was wholly un- conscious. What they saw were neither Alpine cornices nor the profundity of space, but a sign, “HELLO, U.S.A.,” four miles long, being written by’an airman across the sky. His airplane, at least a mile above the crowded sidewalks, looked like a tiny pen point of silver describing kilometric curves: the mark it left on the vast blue page resembled a white feather, and its precision in forming letters, even larger than Hearst headlines, appeared as uncanny as thetelautograph. Sky writing is upon us. Henceforth, we shall not have to become astronomers to read the heavens. The signs of the Zodiac will give place to uplift slogans in behalf of chewing gum and constipation cures and we shall feel at home wherever we look. 13 comichooks.qouu)