Judge — November 1937 — page 34: what you’re looking at

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

IF | DARE SAY SO By Charles B. Driscoll E. I were managing MAYOR LA. GUARDIA I'd keep his picture out of the papers and get a special micro- phone that would deepen his voice. De- spite his faults, he’s still the best Mayor ‘or his looks I've ever seen . . . But one should be thankful for any sort of Mayor, I SUPPOSE; most of them are so iggy . . . And in Yonkers they're all heated up about changing to city man- ager rule. I've lived in two towns that had city managers. In one, a new gang of crooks took charge under the city manager; in the other they just kept the old gang . . . and I have seen many things under the sun, but this I know: You don’t change people by changing laws or forms . . . J. B. PRIESTLY says he likes America. In return, permit me to say I like PRIESTLY. In Arizona I read his Midnight on the Desert, and was ex- alted, because the author so gently leads you to the quiet glory of the desert . . . And what is this I hear about how Gone With the Wind is really on the shelf until a certain male actor's present con- tract runs out? Please tell me, too, wheth- er actresses pay press agents to get them mentioned as the absolutely-positively- definite-and-certain final choice for the part of SCARLETT O'HARA .. . But this habit of making black marks on white paper is not easily overcome in one’s mature years. I started writing a going-away letter to my daughter MARY, the week before she went to college. I’m still writing it in spare mo- ments, and, GOD help me, it's already OIRO more than one hundred thousand words long . . . All letter mail should go by air. Toting letters, small or large, around the country on steam trains 1s an anti- quated business . . . It was a bit of a wrench to see the Omaha Bee-News go flooey. I cubbed on the News when it was fighting the Bee, and got myself gloriously beaten by gangsters. Like mak- ing a great touchdown for alma mater just before she shuts up shop for good . .» WALTER O'KEEFE tells me that a radio gagman is apt to get gag-drunk, as a fighter gets punch-drunk. A famous gagster was paid $1,500 a week to grind out jokes for a certain air show last sea- son, and in three weeks resigned, not having cracked a single gag. . . and I know comic strippers who get that way. They'll be going like a clipper, stunsails 32 alow and aloft, and of a sudden will run into dead calm, without a gag to flut- ter a sail or a thought to steer her by. Some I've known have got out of the doldrums only by getting richly plastered . .. G. B. SHAW admits he's too old to lecture. I wish he’d have thought of that before he delivered his sillyass speech at the Metropolitan Opera House a few years ago. I never saw a big man make a smaller splash in a puddle than he did that night. . . . Bang-bang tales on the air got a set-back when a twelve- year-old kid shot his teacher while strut- ting his stuff after the manner of his favorite radio hero. LD ED HOWE, as we Kansans al- ways called him, didn’t believe in SHAKESPEARE or GOD, and, I sus- pect, for the same reason. He couldn't understand or appreciate them. I liked his aphorisms and his Story of 2 Country Town, but his perpetual grouch and his naive worship of Bankers bored me al- ways . . . Now HENRY MENCKEN has a grouch, but it's a pleasant, smiling, beer-guzzler’s grouch, and he couldn't be boring, even when he writes about his ancestors, MENCKEN isn’t sore at the world; he's just amused because the world thinks it's somebody .. . A girl once went to a funeral, and saw a lonely mourner, standing afar off until the cor- tege had left the cemetery. Then saw him walk to the grave, and weep alone. The girl became MRS. BILL LENGEL, told BILL of the incident, and he, build. ing backward from the scene at the grave, wrote a novel, which is Candles in the Wind ...and I saw JOAN LOWELL, lately back from Brazil, subdued, quiet, and vowing she'll write no more. I could hardly believe her the JOAN of the hell- roaring days and ways of Cradle of the Deep . . . Good title, that was, SIR FREDERICK TREVES, Bart., wrote a book and called it that, back in 1920. It was full of tall tales of the Caribbean. . .. But for a title coincidence, I'll take Paths of Glory, two books of the same title, done by two COBBS, IRVIN and HUMPHREY, two decades apart. And HUMPHREY didn’t know IRVIN had ever written such a book . BET, piece I've seen about the Chinese and Japs at war was by PEARL BUCK, in Asia. That woman knows her Orient . . . Neither side in this Eastern war places any value on human life. A fellow is as well off dead as alive, and maybe better. So it’s no trick at all to slaughter civilians and kill prisoners . . . and the Japs can’t understand the pious notes they've been getting from the Western nations, urging them to confine their killing to people in uniform. What difference can a suit of clothes make about a man's fitness to be killed? We're out to steal China and kill off the Chi- nese, clothes or no clothes... A droll people, and much given to philosophy . .. EDDIE WINDSOR is conducting a smart campaign for a seat in Parliament in his home country. He’s going about the world a bit, and lets it leak out that he’s studying housing conditions of the working people . . . That burns up the politicians at home and His Royal Nin. compoopity, the KING. Mention hous. ing within earshot of Buckingham pal. ace, and the very walls sweat . .. EDDIE will let off a quiet statement now and again, and then he'll go home and run for office on a rehabilitation program. And who, do you think, will win that race? ENE FOWLER has mung the bell again, with a novel called Salute to Yesterday . . . THE PRESIDENT is thinking up a successor to JIM FARLEY. Fair warning: WIZARD EVANS is a Kluxer, and don’t say I didn’t tell you so, MR. PRESIDENT .. . More than 11,000 people are murdered in the U.S. annu. ally. HOMER CUMMINGS would stop it by registering the guns. Just another vain law, HOMER. It would keep weap- ons from law-abiders, but do you think any mobster would conscientiously re- frain from murder because his pistol wasn’t registered? . . . But then, of course, it does give you something to talk loud about whenever anybody asks you: Why is my bank-wrecker at large? + . . It is rumored that FATHER COUGHLIN is back on the air. He has won his place in history as the ace shush of all time. If HOOVER had had the recipe that was used later on COUGH. LIN, he could have shushed SMEDLEY BUTLER, and F. D. R. might even have muted HUGH JOHNSON with the same medicine . . . We've had much talk about “the duty of every citizen to vote.” On the contrary, it is the duty of everybody to refrain from voting unless he knows why he's voting for whom. Random voting ought to be punished by public flogging, and election day posters should read: Citizens will stay indoors all day unless they know what the bell it's all about. comicbooks.com