Judge — September 6, 1924 — page 17: what you’re looking at

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

-+ XUM Editor, Norman Anthony. Canon Fodder Good morning, Canon telling us why you | relentles In the cause of righteousness, your Honor. You mean you object to prize fighting? Yes, and to the morals of prize fighters. What do you know about Firpo's moral: I know he perjured himself when he said that woman on the boat was only a casual acquaintance. Did it ever occur to you that a gentleman usually keeps such gossip to himself? I meant to stop the fight. I see. A sort of Saint George throwing mud. always happens with such ammunition, you spattered all of us with it. Next time, won't you kindly refrain from meddling with what is none of your darn business and let us enjoy our brutal sports in an atmosphere of purity and peace? Chase. Would you mind © pursued the gallant. Firpo so As “Let’s Pretend” The Ladies’ Home Journal is forever engaged in the gentle pastime of ‘Let's pretend.” Let's pretend, it suggests, that we're all perfect ladies; let's pretend that this is the best of all possible worlds, that domestic hygiene and comfort are the highest of human aims, that every mawkish sentimentality is proof of nob and, espe- cially, let’s pretend that there’s no such thing as sex When the editor finds that there is any considerable body of people who refuse to play this little game of pretense with him he grows purple in the face and explodes. In his August number, for example, he devotes a page to an hysterical denunciation of what he is pleased to term “The Filth Uplifters.” The Filth Uplifters are apparently all those men and women who are tired and sick of the saccharine fictions on which the Ladies’ Home Journal has thriven, and are denying or ignoring them in print. They include “Our Bertrand Russells and Havelock Ellises,” to use one of the editor’s own classifications also their “cheap and tawdry imitators.” Their main offense, of course, is their frank discussion of sex. Some day, very likely, the pretenses and_pruderies of the Ladies’ Home Journal will seem as quaint to us as hoop skirts, or as the inanities of Godey’s Ladies’ Bool. In the meantime we can condole with an editor who sees a public, cloyed with his sweets, turning in ever greater numbers to the coarser, more wholesome fare of realism. Associate Editors, William Mor Joughton, William Edgar Fisher Cherchez la Femme The editor of a “ladies’ " magazine these days occupies a dangerous if rather exciting position. ‘The whole is engaged in a lightning change act which, unless he looks lively, is apt to leave him a hopeless reactionary. Y haircuts, legs, cigarettes—the acquisition of all is merely the surface indication of an eman- cipation that is affecting also the female taste in literature. “Before the war,” writes the editor of the Ladies’ Home Journal, “there was a handful of crude sex-stuff magazines. Now they are numbered in scores He might disagree that the sudden demand for this type of literature comes mostly from women. Neverthe- less men haven't changed their attitude toward the topic of sex in centuries, and women are revolutionizing theirs. No longer dependent on marriage for a livelihood, they have divested their minds as well as their bodies of corsets. ‘They want to revel in their new freedom and to read and talk about SEX in capital letters. at the top of the social scale are busy wi nd what our shocked and indi; alls “Highly Refined and Respectable Fi lower the “crude sex-stuff magi As for the latter, “bad as they are, they are bogus in their pretensions at wickedness,” according even to the L. H. J. editor. Then what's all the shouting about, unless it is that they are eating into his circulation? The home of the Swiss che Wisconsin—Press Item, Sounds like a Republican libel. A Bum Joke Don't get the idea that because Labor Day has come and gone summer has done likewise. Both the weather and the calendar deny it. The change that has taken place, if any, is not outward but inward. ‘There is a tyranny about this particular holiday that mocks its name. It taps your inner consciousness with the suggestion that you shake your summer habits of body and mind and get into your winter stride. It wakes you from the irresponsible mood that is the finest fruit of hot days, reminds you of forgotten ambitions and worries and speeds up your machinery. And it does all this at least a month too soon. Who invented such an ingenious alarm clock and set it at such a diabolical date will probably remain a mystery. The crowning act was to name it Labor Day. WM. H. sex as a Those down devour zines.” eese industry in America is comicbooks.com