Life — February 1, 1923 — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

Things Ll FE Would Rather Like to Know HETHER France is prepar- ing to pu'l a Bonaparte. ee * How the Prince of Wales could possibly keep all his reported 1- gagements. KK What M. Poincaré really thinks of Mr. Hughes’ literary style. xk If there are really more murders in New Jersey or have we merely got in the habit of counting them. * * If it isn’t rather futile to elect Congressmen nearly a year before they can do anything about it, even if they want to. * KK When William Randolph Hearst will write an editorial denouncing Japan for its duplicity in making China take back Shantung. KK Whether the French are not the envy of all American “go-getters.” . x ** If the Harding-Hughes school of diplomacy hasn’t reached a stage when a feeler needs a friend. xe For what William Allen White was sentenced to Kansas. *** Whether the French could be per- suaded to send an expedition into some of our own coal mines. How long a popular song must go unsung before it becomes a popu- lar song again. * ee If Walter Camp’s All-American Eleven is better than his Daily Doz- en. **e* What the people.in Russia would vote for if they were assured of a secret ballot and a disinterested count. *** Whether Ambassador Harvey has found that our women are more apt to assert that they have souls than our men are to deny that they possess spirits. *** Whether the new members of Con- gress intend to patronize the boot- leggers of their predecessors. * eX If the foreign ambassadors in Washington don’t find it awfully ex- pensive to maintain the only legal oases in the Great American Desert. ORK Whether it’s easier to find a needle in a haystack or a gram of radium under its worth in rubles. *** What would happen if a confer- ence of diplomats failed to break up in a disagreement. *e* Whether world peace depends up- on who's Hughes in Europe. Shot Until Sunrise WO Americans climbed to one of the most majestic heights in the Swiss Alps last summer. When they got to the top one of them produced a pair of dice and they shot craps until nearly dark. This incident is delightfully typi- cal of foreign travel by Americans this season. The travel notes of many Americans contain accounts of just such wonderful days. But it is not merely when they are away from home that Americans aspire to shoot craps. Observations in various parts of the United States show the game to be preferred against other crimes and diversions. Delegates going to conventions no longer spend their time dealing cards at tables in airtight Pullman com- partments or stuffy hotel rooms. You will find them on the floor invoking the good graces of the gallopers. Men come home from conventions nowadays with their trousers fear- fully bagged at the knees. I know a woman in Chicago who uses diamond dice. I am aware of other efforts to make crap shooting essentially a rich man’s sport, yet it remains Americanly democratic, ap- pealing to the low as well as the high. So universally is it practiced in the nation that organizations drumming up 100 per cent. Ameri- canism may be expected to make it part of the ritual. I do not believe that Prohibition has anything to do with the popu- larity of the sport. If the United States ever should have Prohibition I doubt that it would diminish in- terest in the bones one whit. As I see it the reason for the rise of crap shooting is plain. Just re- call the Public Library-like silence of poker, bridge, and faro and con- trast it with the noisy garrulity of a session with the dice. There is the answer. This is an age of say-it- with-something. Say it with anything —the human voice preferred, au naturel, or canned. The chap with an impediment in his speech is the per- son to be pitied in times like these. GGG. Business “Tuere’s a collector downstairs to see you, sir.” “Tell him to call some day when I'm at home.” comicbooks.com