New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1907-02-10
4 VOICE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS.

Professor Burt G.. Wilder, of Cornell Univer-
sity, is one of those rare gcniuses who being
enthusiastic reformers nevertheless show excel
lent taste and good judgment in picking their
reforms The trouble with many amateur re-
formers IS that they spend their energies in try
ing to upset some institution which, If only as
sailed vigorously and clcverly enough might
actually be overturned, together with all ITS
worshippers. This possibility Of successful agl
tation leads many a man to fritter away his
life in serious revolutionlzing. The academic
calm of Ithaca, however breeds worldly wisdom
Professor Wilder has grasped the great truth
that ii is more entertaining and generally salts
factory to champion impossible reforms lie
appears in black and white in the columns of
The Cornell Daily sun" harshly attacking the
student custom of pilfering souvenirs 1t APP
pears that during junior promenades at Cornell
many things ordinarily regarded as fixtures fall
into the cosmic fuX and disappear Professor
Wilder suspects that the active agencies in this
process reside in the palataI fraternity houses
Of Ithaca. The initiative and cumulative guests
Of the coegians apply the classic rule: when
in Ithaca steal as the Ithacans do" or course.
it is a matter of common courtesy for guests TO
adopt the morals Of their hosts. Hence Profess
sor Wilder refrans from venting his sterilized
wrath upon the transients; he calls upon the
unrepentant colleglans TO mend their morals
First cast out the beam that is in your own
eyes" he writes, and along with it cast out all
the signbaards. stems, pipes, tableware old
shoes and window frames now gracing the SOU
venr museums.
We rejoice to see Professor Wilder wrestling
with this problem. It is question which ranks
with those Of squarlng the circle and mapping
the dark side Of the moon If affords infinite
oDpOrtunites for high class intellectual revelrv
and Mt the same time guarantees to all its moral
Bacchanals immunity from false hopes and
broken hearts For is il not an axiom of Amer
icansm that this polite form Of theft known as
souvenir collecting is an immutable trait In our
national character? OF course. everybody knows
that it is sinful indefensble and corrupting.
but it is practised and tolerated in precisely the
same spirit as in the Orient magnificent. verbose
lying is carried on in the most ordinary exchange
of social amenities.
We react to the habit just as the Arab does
to his friends assurances of endearment and
the like We are not blinded any more than he
is Our college tradesmen scale up their prices
to cover losses due to popuarizing knavery
Our hotelkeepers chain down everything except
the toothpicks and furnish their hostleries with
imitation silver and linen for protection against
this infant industry. And everybody smiles sadly
at the news Of such marauding as goes on Mt Cor
nell and every other school. The evil Is one TO
which we have adjusted both our business and
our conscience with that astonishing fiexibilty
which is the despair OF foreigners. George Ber-
nard Shaw would call us hypocrites. but we are
not. We see the moral mud in our ways we
confess to It's presence and its permanence and
then to the reformers' irritation we pull On
the rubber boots of canniness and walk through
the mire almost unspotted.
The souvenir thief has come to stay. He IL
corollary to the theorem that every normal
man passes through the smarty stage and that