Life — August 30, 1928 — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

“Non-Partisan” Tue ravto is one of the vestal virgins of our national life. The screen is another vestal. Newspapers, religious organiza- tions and leagues of one thing and another may be swayed by passing passions, and boast about it, too. But let the radio or movies favor one cause above another and the outcry is something horrible. The old public is being sold down the river again. And so we have those non-partisan speeches. Recently, over a New York sta- uon, Ogden L. Mills (one of the Repub- lican martyrs who have run against Al Smith) made a non-partisan speech on the Presidential candidates. Mr. Mills de- scribed the state of this country at the end of Wilson's administration as being somewhat in the condition of Europe in the year 999. You never heard such a pic- ture of desolation in your life. Wolves were prowling about the City of Wash- ington, devouring Republican Congress- men who ventured forth after dark. After listening to Mr. Mills’s non-partisan speech, you got the idea that if any other than Mr. Hoover is elected, we'll all be living in caves and feeding off roots and herbs within a year. Mr. Mills’s neutral outline of the polit- ical situation was followed by another un- biased talk by Walter Lippmann. Mr. Lippmann is editorial writer on the New York World and the World advocated Smith for president of the kindergarten class when Al was attending parochial school. The radio also received Dr. John Roach Straton’s non-partisan sermon on Al Smith, which was surely a cold, logical analysis of the political situation, as dis- passionate as one of Aimee Semple Mc- Pherson’s philosophical outbursts in Los Angeles. And all this brings up the point of radio censorship. As a matter of fact, there is no such thing. If a station gets beyond the bounds of law, order and decency, it can have its license revoked. Or if individual announcers or performers ’ \ . THE RADIO Al Jolson, for instance, was severely reprimanded because he made cracks re- flecting on the morals and social habits of Clara Bow and Gloria Swanson, two estimable leaders of thought. The only time that Will Rogers ever got himself in wrong with the great, serious-minded public was when he delivered a harmless imitation of President Coolidge over the radio. Recently Jimmy Gallagher, a comic, threw New England into a fever by say- ing that “the maple syrup crop will be bad this year, because the Vermont sap doesn’t choose to run,” and a religions station in New York was disciplined be. cause it made mean remarks about the Pope. Fou can’t insult the Pope, Clara Bow or Coolidge and get away with it. Radio stations, in most cases, demand that all material be submitted to them before the speaker goes on the air. But in the case of outside pick-ups of public events the station has no alternative but to take what comes along. It is at the mercy of Dr. Straton or of any after. dinner speaker with a quart of Scotch and a lot of bright ideas about remaking the world. Of course, “accidents” sometimes hap- pen. Occasionally, when a speaker indi- cates that he is about to venture out oa a patch of thin ice, his speech will sud- denly be shut off and the station an- nouncer will apologize profusely because “something has gone wrong with the pick-up.” Unfortunately, these “accidents” don't occur often enough. Agnes Smith. THE DOL (NDUSTRY HOw DOLL Bodies CHOPPING DOWN \MMENSE FOREST TREES FFROM WHICH THE GNWDUST is LATER TO BE EXTRACTED (INSIDE \\ THE FACTORY PROPER ~ MAKING THE SAWDUST WITH WaHice THE DOLL BODIES ARE STUFFED TO A SATISFACTORY! DEGREE OF PLUMPNESS get vicious, they can be disciplined. Benino tHe Scenes or A Great INpusTRY comicbooks.com