Life — February 24, 1916 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

336 A Plea for a Downtrodden Class VERY short story writer is entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. He is furthermore entitled to protection from the advertising writers who feature him in the magazines he is writing for. He is entitled to get married occasionally without comment from any court, for otherwise he would run out of plots and endanger his chances of making a living. It may Le claimed, as against this, that every short story about married life has but one plot; namely, where the man has to spend all the money he has. That is true, but this plot requires different set- tings, and every short story writer has the orivilege of varying the scenery as much as he can, and you can’t vary matrimonial scenery unless you change wives. There should be an offensive and defensive alliance of short story writers to prevent the few men at the top from getting a monopoly in restraint of literary freedom. There should be one price for all. Instead of every editor having the privilege of passing on the stories submitted to the magazine which he happens—for the moment—to be work- ing for, there should be a general staff. The general staff should he selected by popular vote, and after they had ac- cepted the stories each week, they should apportion them out—ration them out—to the different magazines, seeing to it that no author appears in any one magazine more than once. A minimum wage should be established by law. While monopolies should be abolished, at the same time individual incentive should be recognized, short story writers being paid according to their capacity. One ssw can only turn out one ss a day. Another can do five with case. It is obvious that the latter should be rewarded according to his increased capacity. AA pension fund should also be established for the benefit of broken-down story writers who have passed their age AN EMERGENCY “HELLO, DOC, WHERE YOU GOIN’ IN SUCH A HURRY?” “PONT DETAIN ME—I'M GOIN’ To ‘THE BIRTH OF A NATION’! “CPE « IP T. R. HAD BEEN G. W. “OF COURSE I CUT IT DOWN! WHAT DO YOU THINK A HATCHET IS FOR, ANYWAY?” of uselessness. Any short story writer caught writing short stories without a union card shall be compelled, for one year thereafter, to write jol for a living. For the second offense he will have to write love poems for the 35-cent magazines. After that he writes book reviews. bp Oi) Programme for the Celebration of the 138th Anniversary of Our Throwing Off the Foreign Yoke ‘O to Panama March,” by Sousa. Trombonetti’s Italian-American Band. Declamation: “ America for the Americans.” stantine Constanopoulos. Oration: “ Our Country.” Hon. Victoriano Macaronio. Song: “Die Wacht am Hudson.” Saengerbund. Oration: “On the necessity for occasional severe manipu- lation of the caudal appendage of the British Lion.” Hon. Jerry O'Laughlin O'Shaughnessy, Recitation: “ Landuhthefreeandhomeuhthebrave.” Olga Odessavitchs| Song: “ A-M-E-R-I-C-A,” by Cohan. Glee Club. Tableau: “Our Forefathers.” Masters Lopez, Houlihan, Brzycpylsk, Katasuma, Olesen and Schmelzkopf. Prayer: Master Con- German-American Little Yiddish-American Rev. Reginald Algernon Smythe-Askew. Cheers, handclapping, palm-leaf waving, etc. Messrs. Jones, Carter, Johnson, David, Mudd, etc., etc. Z ‘Comicbooks.com