Life — March 5, 1925 — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

MARCH 5, 1925 “While there is Life there's Hope” Published by LIFE PUBLISHING Cuaates Dana Gipson, President OMPANY Laxcuorne Grason, Sec'y and Treas. 598 Madison Avenue, New York English Offices, Rolls House, Breams Bldgs, London, E. C. W = should hand it to Houdini, the well-known magician, as a person who knows his business and how to advance it. It will be recalled that our neighbor, the Sci- entific American, undertook to find out if it could whether there was really something important in spiritism. It offered a prize to mediums who should do marvels that could not be accounted for by the known laws of physics. If there was anything super-normal going on the Scientific American wanted to know about it, which was a_praise- worthy desire, and it did the best it could to promote discovery. It got to- gether the best committee it could think of and put on it Houdini, who should detect the tricks of mediums there were any. Several mediums were tried out and were not. satisfactory. There was concurrence in the com- mittee that they did not play fair. Then “Margery” from Boston, who is Mrs. Crandon, said she would try to show them something, stipulating be- forehand that she would not take any money or reward. The committee worked with her in New York for sev- eral wee and much longer in Bos- ton. Not less than ninety observations were taken. The other day the com- mittee reported that she had failed to produce any evidence of super-normal phenomena. One member of the com- mittee said she had won; three said she had failed, and the fifth, Houdini, said she had cheated. TH = only person connected with these tests who has got ahead on them is Houdini. Mrs. Crandon has been both- ered to death giving shows to the in- credulous committeemen and has been maligned and probably slandered. The committee ve put in a lot of work for nothing; all except Houdini. He has had a splendid time, a great deal of newspaper attention and a vast amount of free advertising, all useful to him obviously in the show business in which he is engaged. He has been very amus- ing. He has run about among the in- vestigators and the mediums like a wharf-rat_ among a lot of kittens. Evidently he was securely committed from the start to the opinion that there was nothing super-normal in any of the spiritist doings, that there never has been anything super-normal in such and never would be. With those : which were plainly enough in him, he was evidently not a suitable man to be on the committee. HESE public tests of mediums’ ex- ploits by committees, with prizes offered for success, are not likely to get anywhere in discovering such truth a there is in or behind the spiritist activi- ties. What really counts about the work of mediums is the impression it has made on men like Crookes, Lodge, Bar- rett, Flammarion, Myers, James, Richet, Maeterlinck and scores of others, well known and well regarded. The most interesting experiments go on without advertisement and with a minimum of publicity. What makes some people think that spiritist adventure is the most interesting thing now going on is what they pick up by private reading and discussion, and perhaps experiment. However, such efforts as the Scien- tific American has made are evidence at least that some unconvinced seckers see more in these difficult searchings than others do, and at least it may be said for Houdini that he does not play favorites. He disbelieves in thought transference and telepathy. He gives exhibitions of how it is done and does not hesitate to aver that when Gilbert Murray and Lord Balfour did it they used apparatus or signals. It is his voluble and catholic distrust of the in- tegrity of everybody that makes Houdini himself incredible. Me. JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, JR., in making a large contribu- tion to the Cathedral fund, suggested that contributors not belonging to the Episcopal Church should be represented on the Board of Trustees. Bishop Manning thought that not practicable at present, and maybe it isn't, but discussion of the suggestion goes on and is interesting and it must be said that Mr. Rockefeller's wish gains in desirability. Once the Cathedral is built, the operation of it will natu- rally go to the Episcopal Church, but that does not necessarily conflict with the idea of having persons not of that Church on the Board of Trustees. The Church of England runs all the Cathe- drals in England but it does not own them. The English people own them. So in France the Government owns the Cathedrals but the Roman Catholic Church operates them. I politics times are a little dull. A Federal Judge in Minnesota has shot himself through the heart as a protest against the over-supply of Volstead en- forcement cases, most of which, he said, the State Courts should have looked after. In Washington Mr. Coolidge has tried to agree with the Senate as to who shall be in his Cabinet. In New York the drive for the Cathedral has the right of way and political discussion lulls while Mayor Hylan is recruiting his strength at Palm Beach, The sug- gestion is made that the Mayor as a violent person has been considerably the creation of Comptroller Craig. The terms of both expire at the same time: In everything that comes up in these days for public inquiry or discussion. what most impresses observers is the saturation of the public. mind with age- long prejudice. We all suffer from it, some more than others, but all more or less. We can only sce what our in- herited or acquired preconceptions about everything permit us to see. On sub- jects about which we know something there is hope that we may come to en- lightened views, but in the much larger field of things about which our knowl- edge is negligible, prejudice and politics are all we seem to have. E. S. Martin. comicbooks.com