Judge — December 29, 1923 — page 29: what you’re looking at

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

DONALD STEWART GROWS UP oNALD OcpEN Stewart has hither- D to been a perfectly well-behaved American humorist, which is to that his humorous books were guaranteed harmless and evocative of the loud guffaw. Just now and then, in his literary burlesques, he hinted at a cer' cruelty of intellect—as in the introducti to his “Parody Outline of History, which was an. unmerciful exposure’ of William Lyon Phelps. But for the most part there has been no reason whatever why the amiable Stewart should not write for Jupce, Life, Vanity Fair, the Saturday Evening Post, the New York Times, the Atlantic Monthly, or any other American periodical, whether intention- ally or unintentionally mirth provoking. But, alas, he can no longer be depended on. He has turned satirist. His latest Aunt Polly’s Story of Mankind” an), is so unmistakably satiric that it will inspire chuckles in the children of So that’s my trouble. I sleep too late, the doctor says. “Will you guarantee this clock to ring?” “Not these $3 ones. do the ones at $5.” by Walter Prichard Eaton light, and pain in the satisfied bosoms of the bourgeois—the pain, of course, of un- merited insult. Odd, how few Americ: ever satirists. Of cour: nd to be, and are never really dare. n humorists are a lot of them 0 called. But Take orge who toted their soiled linen njo cases, but in all his long career he’s never got much deeper than that. Take Kauffman and Connelly, authors of the play, “To the Ladies,” hailed in some quarters as a satire courage consisted in poking fun at young men who think they can improve their salaries by consulting the memory courses advertised in the popular magazines, and in poking fun at the institution of after- dinner oratory. This is to satire about what Murray Hill is to the Matterhorn. Real satire would expose the spiritual poverty of a people whose overmastering ge desire to “get on” in the world takes the form of a scramble for more salary, and the consequent circulation of the American Magazine. Maybe it was because he felt an attack of real satire coming on that Stewart went to Italy to write “Aunt Polly’s Story of Mankind.” Aunt Polly is the wife of Uncle Frede- rick, president of the First’ National, who recently told the State Bankers’ Association that “the great need for the younger generation is a return to the safe and sane standards of before the war.” Aunt Polly is a perfect wife for such a man. They a little son, David, and Aunt Polly nephew, nuel, and two little nieces, of an inquiring turn of mind, ‘To these four she tells her story of mankind, and out of their infant mouths what passes for her wisdom is confounded. — It is a merciless if a merry showing up. Aunt Polly is all the smug, (Continued on page 30) a $5 clock. We at six, “Well, then, let me have I must get up no matter what it I should have bought a clock long ago. There, now! This will start me on my way to health again. Ring a ling a ling—! Ding, ding a ling! What the——! zzzzzzzzz! comicbooks.com