Life — April 3, 1924 — page 36: what you’re looking at

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

HE latest list of the world’s greatest men comes from Ann Arbor. It is limited to four, and al- though it ought not to be hard to re- member a list of the four greatest men now living, I am sorry to say that I recall the names of only two—Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. And I read this list yesterday afternoon. Now I am aware that everybody is utterly tired of these lists of men, women, books and plays, and * LIFE : Broadcastings By Montague Glass day, and before any one could stop him, a friend of mine who has recently returned froma sojourn in Paris said that it would continue just as long as American cooks didn’t know how to keep it from grow- ing rancid. He said that as soon as the can or bottle is opened, the con- tents ought to be poured into a wide- necked jar with a glass stopper, and that every time the oil was used there- after, both the neck and the stopper ought to be wiped dry with a perfectly fresh clean cloth. eee E said further that this business of serving salad as an hors d'auvre was a barbarous custom, and with this prelude, he entered upon an indig- nant consideration of all that has hap- pened to the salad of tradition since 1890, when salad was a mixture of crisp uncooked that it is fruitless to discuss what is a matter of taste, but nevertheless in a choice of the four greatest men it is in- teresting to consider not the chosen but the chooser, A col- lege president did the picking in this case, so it is quite pos- sible that he picked Edison and Ford upon the principle of turning the other check, for we all know what they think of col- leges and college presidents. eee SSUMING, however, that he was acting in no such Christian spirit, what on earth prompted a college president to vote for Henry Ford as one of the world’s four greatest? I for one see this college president conscious of his own intellectual and educational equipment, comparing his attainments with those of Henry rd, a man signally. lacking both in- tellect and education. He is staggered, as we all are, by Mr. Ford's success in view of Mr. Ford’s personal defi therefore it must be the dif- ficulty of Mr. Ford's task, and = hot its importance, which ap- peals to the college president. But what surprises me about the college president is that he should not regard the difficulty of Mr. Ford’s task as Dr. Johnson regarded the task of the dog that walked on_ its hind legs. Dr. Johnson, you will remember, admitted it was difficult and wished to God it was impossible. eee OME one mentioned the oil scandal at dinner the other N overrated fc. I think, Is that repellent missing link With hoof of goat and face of man (Or is it vice-versa?), Pan! I tolerate a goat when he Is safe across a fence from me. But nothing he might symbolize Would make me like him otherwise. His leg. for all the bard may sing. Is not. per se. a godlike thing. And when attached to human torso Looks like the devil. only more so. Yet Shakespeare, Keats and Shelley speak With adoration of this freak Which Mr. Barnum, without doubt Would blush with shame to think about He does not symbolize the spring To me, nor youth, nor anything Except some thought which | might think If 1 should drink and drink and drink. So | will leave the bards their Pan With hoof of goat and face of man. And he may play his pipes divine While I shall go on smoking mine. Roger Burlingame. herbs and the conventional dressing of oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. He grew apo- plectic over the impudence of American cooks in designating as salad the horrible messes of chopped-up fruit, nuts and sugar over which is poured a highly viscous unguent, half furniture polish and half hair oil, and when he commented on the sacrilege of substituting lemon juice for vinegar in the salad dressing, it was necessary but quite useless to remind him that there were ladies in the room. eee OWEVER, he calmed him- self a little by quoting Richard Ford's dictum that to compound a good salad four per- sons are needed: a spendthrift for oil, a miser for vinegar, a counsélor for salt, and a mad- man to stir it all up. At this point it became possible to tell him that the oil scandal we had mentioned was the one down in Washington involving ex-Sec- retary Fall and Mr. Sinclair, and he said that he knew it, but that the other oil scandal was of much longer standing and of greater importance, in that it more closely affected the lives and comfort of the public, and I think he's right. see R. WILL HAYS is en- treating the moving pic- ture manufacturers to listen to their paid guide, philosopher and friend, Mr. Will Hays, and not to picturize the modern realistic novel with the strong (Continued on page 42) comicbooks.com