# Sunday Star/'Don't Make Any New Year Resolutions'

Extracted from Sunday Star magazine, 1922, Jan 1, p. 6. Accompanying illustrations omitted.
"Don't Make Any New Year Resolutions" Says Lardner
TO the editor: Well friends, I suppose you know what day this Sunday is without me reminding you, namely New Yrs. day which is the day when so many people makes resolutions which they think will improve themselfs in some way, either swear off habits that ain't good for their health or quit wasteing so much money or something.
It is generally always the men folks that does the swearing off, maybe because the ladies is all ready perfect, but whatever is the reason it is the gents of my sex that makes the most important resolutions wile all the women do is stand around and get ready to laugh, except in a few cases where a woman will maybe get into the spts. of the occasion and take a oath to not loose her pocket book more than 5 times dureing the comeing yr. or promise that every 4th. or 5th. remark her husband makes dureing 1922, she will pretend to listen.
But it is the men's resolutions which I wish to speak about them at this time, and I hope my readers won't be shocked when I make the remark that for at lease this one New Yrs. day it will be better for the gen. well fare if no resolutions is made.
A REMARK like this kind no doubt demands a explanation and I am not the man who would make such a remark without being able to explain same. Well then, it ain't necessary to tell nobody that we have been in the throws of a business slump and that same ain't over yet and that when a man quits smokeing or drinking or decides to become a tight wad he is dealing a blow to business in gen. and a specially the boot legging business and the cigar stores.
Everybody knows that these is facts but what they may not know is that they's other branchs of industry's that is effected even worse by the swearing off of evil and that these branchs is all ready stareing ruin right in the eye. I refer to the allied professions of doctor, nurse and undertaker and that part of the real estate game that specializes in 6 ft. lots.
I suppose you seen in the papers a wile ago where the insurance companys reported that 1921 was the healthest yr. in history. Well the day after that report come out they was 3 undertakers in N. Y. city alone that applied for a bankrupt and when they asked them what was the matter with their business, they said so many people seemed to of give up dying.
About the same time a friend of mine got a letter from a nurse in Chi who said that she was looking around for another job as they wasn't no cases no more. Doctors is starveing to death all over the U. S. and Canada wile hospitals are getting such a rotten play that some of the ones that used to be proud is now thinking about putting up a electric sign:
"Welcome Leppers."
That is the condition these branchs of industry is in and they's onlv one answer namely, that we are too dog gone well all ready without trying to get no better. Even under the present conditions, which is said to be the worst in history from a doctor's or pall bearer's standpoint, a big majority of the people engaged in this kind of arts is headed for the rocks and what will it be if a few more of their prospective customers decides to not drink or smoke ourselfs to death. A panic ain't the word.
THE worst of this situation is that the gents and ladies effected by same is not the kind that can meet the situation and save themselfs by changeing their line of business the way some people could, like for inst. you take a brewer and when the law was past vs. beer, why he could still use his brewery to manufacture near beer or yeast or something, or you take a man that use to run a livery barn, why when people begin driveing cars instead of horses, all he had to do was get rid of his horses and morals and call his joint a garage.
But appose a Dr. would half to go to work what would he do? He would half to find some walk of life where you guess for a living and they's only a few jobs besides Dr. where it don't make much difference whether you guess right or wrong, like for inst. telephone operator or weather prophet neither of which commands no such ridiculous stipend as a Dr. has been brought up to expect.
As far as nurses is concerned, you would think from reading the papers that any nurse could get a job as a show girl as it seems like a newspaper reporter, can't write the word nurse without putting pretty in front of it, but personly I been In hospitals myself several times both as spectator and client and if the nurses which was sicked onto me and my friends was cut out for any stage role it must of been one of the gals that they ring up the curtain on in Macbeth.
The average nurse might make a pretty good sales lady but they ain't no frantic demand for them at this time of yr.
In places where euchre or bridge whist is popular an undertaker can last a little wile renting chairs but even at $.50 a dozen this kind of business ain't going to make him rich as very few private card partys is give for more than 8 people, and mine hostess may of came from a rich family and own a couple of chairs herself.
ABOUT the only way I can see for a funeral director to get along without funerals is to pour all his embalming fluid into quart bottles, label it Old Stiff and sell it for $110 a case.
But of course when doctors, nurses and undertakers desserts their own field to try and get jobs as telephone girls or clerks or boot leggers, why that ain't going to improve the non employment situation not one iota and in fact just the opp, so it should ought to be the aim of every man, woman and child to try and keep the above mentioned artists busy in their own profession which the only way to accomplish same is for all of us to take down sick and some of us to even make the supreme sacrifice and die.
So my friends think twice before you give up any habits that you think is undermining your health, because if they was ever a time when it would be better to be worse, this is it.
RING W. LARDNER.
Great Neck. Dec. 30
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1933, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 90 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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