The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-07-24
SAYS UNCLE CAV

The test of enlarged ideas is enlarged
activity. If you don't get results, you're
merely suffering from swelled head. we
have too many incompetent lnteilect-
ualS," sa called. Really, incompetent I'M
beetles would be quite as accurate
term. Big notions that fail to nTlng
forth big deeds are mostly froth- They
haven't the substance, for substance al
ways makes itself felt:
Windy Bill, who whites sticks in front
of the crossroads grocery and settles
problems of state while his wife takes
in washing, is the type of all the 1ncon-
petent intellectuals." He is quite as mucn
of a statesman as the hungry, long-haired
poseurs are artists, writers and musicians
If the latter had been born at the cross
tics instead of art, they would be wearing
overalls, splitting tobacco juice, whiting
sticks and cursing presidents Tor Tools.
Windy Bill and his tribe know the faults
of men who do the work. They can tell
anybody how to do anything.
In artistic circles they call Windy Bill
a bohemian or a dilettante and invite him
to dinner. At the crossroads grocery,
where the glamour of words doesn't al
ways conceal Incompetence. they call him
a loafer and put a screen over the cheese
Bill is a sort of soap-bubble philosopher.
1t doesn't take much soap and water TO
make a bubble, providing there is enough
hot air. Bill believes he has big ideas,
when he only has the big head.
Big ideas get big results IF. # they Hoo don't IT
big idea is its workableness.
The Senator and the Black Hand.
Unwonted excitement disturbed the
usual morning calm of the Capitol,
when it was whispered that senator
had received a message from the
BLACK Hand" Immediately there
were visions of detectives tracing up
every evanescent clue, for it had been
stated positively over the phone by
the senator that he was the victim of
a Black hand disaster, and the waste
baskets were being searched for
scraps of information that might lead
to finding the letter in which the
threat had been made.
There was CONSERVATION when the
senator was encountered on the golf
links. and an excited group OF players
him to quiz about the
alarming missive what apout tnaC
Black Hand letter." they cried.
what Black Hand letter?' asked
the senator absently.
why, the one you were talking
about this morning..
81 think 1 threw 1t IN the waste
basket"
The waste basket has been
but we can find no letter"
1--WE must have that letter, sena-
tor" put in a young reporter earnest
ly. Your cooperation with the press
and the officers of the law will mean
much in
''Say, young man." broke in the sem
ator, sis this a joker" He was Guilt
waiting the language necessary for use
with mules) in intensified farming,
and INDUCED in a few epithets before
he stated:
THAT Black Hand is nothing
nothing at all. 1 tried to fill my
fountain pen this morning with in
delible ink, and I still have the black
hand with me-" For PROOF ne neIu up
an inky palm which liberal applica-
tions of pumice-stone had failed to
whiten.
Thus was the newspaper rumor
quieted. The Disguised golfers saun-
tered away to conceal their feelings,
and the senator went back to his
game, wondering why it was that a
man could not even talk about his
fountain pen without awakening
reportorial energy and national at
.tention-.sAffairs and Folks" Joe
Mitchell Chapple, in Joe Chapple's
Newsletter for June g.