Judge — December 1933 — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

i i a i I eT i i a ea nel year bring in a mellow season of intimacy and confidences. So perhaps it will not be taken amiss if this old gentleman, weeping into his glass of legal liquor, tells you some thing about his personal affairs. Don’t worry. It’s really a cheerful story—for you. And it won't occur again. For the simple fact is that he isn’t going to write this page any more. Having sat on this well-cushioned bench since June, 1927, the old gent is climbing down (creaking a bit) and tottering off to green fields and pastures new. He isn’t going west. He's going east. He has put his gavel in pickle and laid aside the blue pencil and the yellow paper, the green eye-shade, the red ink Does he hear a sob resound in the court room, does a tear glisten in the jury-box? Perhaps not. Anyway, let's not be sentimental about it even if Christmas is coming. One of the famous sayings of the Fourth Estate is, “The editor is dead or drunk, or fired, (or gone to Hollywood) ; long live the Editor.” Another hand will write this page next month. The departing incum- bent has an uneasy hunch that it will be a darn sight better than it has been these several years. Yet, looking back over the records of the court, he has not too many regrets. He has been wrong his share of times. C HRISTMAS and the close of the TT Ve am He has sent a few innocent guys to jail and let some unconscionable scoundrels go free. He has made some cock-eyed decisions, cited some bad precedents, reasoned from some false premises to some empty conclusions, and has some- times charged the jury with more elo- quence than intelligence. But on the whole he thinks he has been just if Ring Out the Old not wise, kindly if not clever, earnest if not lucid. And he has not too often been reversed in the higher courts of public opinion. a alle Indeed, it’s a pretty good time to quit. Many of the policies for which this page has shouted, even to the point of tiresome repetition, have now been adopted by the nation. Prohibition is repealed. Child labor is abolished. The lame duck amendment has been passed. Rugged individualism is kapoot. The bankers are no longer demi-gods. Recognition of the Soviet Union is here. National planning and_ relief through public works, for which this page was almost the first to argue, are under way. But we mustn't boast. To be quite truthful, a number of our best crusades still lag and flounder. We had hoped to abolish after-dinner speaking, the silk hat, the long-tailed evening coat, radio advertising, the college entrance ex- aminations and the Daughters of the American Revolution. We were very eager to assure the preservation of the whale, the adoption of the dutch treat by college girls on dates, the reduction of the tariff and the wider use of the split infinitive. These issues we com- mend to our successor. And now, since the yule-log-rolling has begun and the mistletoe is just round the corner, we'd like by way of ewell to turn back through the pages of Judge and recite a little of what we said here about Christmas two years since, in 1931: “Bad as our economic situation was a year ago, it is worse now—except that we are wiser by a year’s learning, and, by so much, closer to recovery. If we still persist in letting money clank through our minds, we shall not have 12 JUDGE oy roe BENCH much merriment... . “Have we forgotten the origin of Christmas, that it celebrates the birth of Him who came to teach simplicity and meekness and quiet faith in the sure destiny of man Have we forgotten that the early celebrants of Christmas were humble folk, who, with neither present wealth nor future security, drew from this day much joy and reverence and courage with which to face together the unknown? Have we not noticed that little children, who neither know nor care about prices and budgets, are the happiest of us all on Christmas Day “Only at the millennium, of course, will there come a Christmas that is moneyless, free of all competition and vanity. But this year of Christ 1931 ought to move the world a pace or two in that direction... . “Let this Christmas drive further into oblivion the haunting memory of the money-gods. Let nobody give more than he can afford, for fear of what he ey pects to receive. Let nobody give less than he can afford, because he knows the recipient will give little or nothing. And let nobody give at all except with genuine desire to give... . “In this year, we may if we will, re- cover some of the old, the true spirit of Christmas and remind ourselves of what we had so far forgotten, that friendship is not a financial venture, that love is without price and is strong and casts out fear, and that humility has power to breed a mighty courag So, sweet maids and good masters, may ye have a merry Christmas and many of ’em. Let nothing you dismay —not even a change of editors. And a Happy New Year and many of ‘em. Ring out the old editor. Ring in the new. R.JLW. comicbooks.com