Life — July 20, 1916 — page 13: what you’re looking at

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

“YEAH, IT’S GOLF, BILL, YE CAN TELL BY TH’ CLUB” But to very many it will be stimulat- ing and developing, leaving them bet- ter citizens and broader and more valu- able men than it found them. They will have opened a great window of life and looked out, and that is worth while. B.S. Me Peace Signs From the Diary of a Tired Observer UNE 29, 1916. Notice beginnings of interest in normal literature for first time in nearly two years. This evening read “Casey at the Bat” with some relish, and wondered what was in the magazines besides war pieces. Not able to read a magazine story yet, but am saving one to begin on when I feel up to it. Tired of all the war writers, even Kipling and Simonds, but still read them with sympathy not to be denied. Tired of Wells, Shaw and most of the philosophical after-the-war speculators. Feel only a languid inter- est in prophecies unless they are extra good. Tired of preparedness, but much tireder of not having any. Hope to heaven we will get off without hav- ing to fight Mexicans, D—4d hot, mean job. Nobody wants it. Splendid practice to get ready for it. Immensely inconvenient, but all to the good as demonstration of need of better way. Proper preparation, taken in time, fore- seen, planned out ahead and counted on, wouldn’t be so bad. But war! Oh, my! Makes me sick! The admirable French dropped a bomb on a Hagenback zoo somewhere and killed seventy-five children! Aimed at a railroad station! Think of that! Truth is, everybody is horribly glutted with war. Sorry Fifth Avenue Hotel is gone. Cheaper to board the Mexi- cans there (as used to be said of the Indians) than to fight ‘em. Utterly ridiculous to fight the mass of the Mexicans—a pure this-hurts-me-more- than-it-hurts-you proposition—but got to straighten things out down there somehow. Could do it vastly more gently with a proper army properly equipped to back language and squelch bandits. What we do now is like surgery with a jack-knife. Neverthe- less, the effort is necessary, and the mobilization is a wise expedient and may avert war. His View M®. WILLIS: Wake up, John! Wake up! Mr. Wits: What's the matter? Mrs. Wits: I hear a harsh, grat- ing noise. I think someone is trying the door. Mr. Wituts: Nonsense. It's some rat trying that cake you made to-day. 101 Ballad of Dandelion Wine “pHE flowers of the country-side More fragrant are than those in shops, The beer that gives Milwaukee pride Is brewed from malt and bitter hops ; Forswear the wire-bound cork that pops, The juices of the foreign vine— My dream of beverages stops With good old dandelion wine! Farewell to barley, grape and rye From California or Kentucky; While dandelion faces lie To catch the sun, then I am lucky. To wet a lusty raisin pie Or pledge the lady that is mine, There is no sweeter draught (say 1) Than good old dandelion wine. Bespeak for me no old sloe gin, No bubbly acid from a syphon— This golden fluid, clear and thin, Is what I choose to live my life on. There are more costly brands of fizz, But, for a tingle down your spine, The very sweetest tipple is Our good old dandelion wine! Christopher Morley. A LADY-KILLER comicbooks.com