The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1915-06-09
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tIopyri.bt, 1914, by Newspapers
Enterprise Associate

/ did not wake up very early
this morning, Dick was gone
when Aunt Mary came into my
room and said that Mollie has
just telephoned that Mother Wav-
erly was coming to luncheon and
that she (Mollie) was coming
right over, and she wanted to sec
me before | saw her mother.
Aunt Mary was not looking
very well these days and this
morning her eyes were particu-
larly sunken and her face was
very pale. Don't you feel well
dear Aunt Mary" | asked.
Eyes, dear. | am perfectly well,
but | am SO tired all the time
lately. l guess 1t is because ] am
getting old, Margie, and you
know | was out late last night to
that foolish musical comedy.
Those boys, Dick and jim,
thought / would be shocked, but
| | was not. | was only Disguised,
not at the play, my dear, but at
the fact that so many apparently
decent people, among whom were
included last night your Aunt
Mary, are willing to spend money
and time while enormously
thinking themselves amused"
Didn't YOU like 1t at all, Aunt
Mary?"
Yes, dear, some of the music
and one Of the women was very
pretty, the dancing was graceful,
the coloring of the stage pictures
grateful to the eye, but. my dear,
the whole appeal was frankly
pornographic. Vulgarity hidden
under a show of taste--a pean to
lust in disguise of love-
My, Aunt Mary" | exclaimed,
you are as smart and epigram-
matte as a Smart Set story
And my subject is quite as
Objectionable as most of theirs
| looked at her in surprise.
had not dreamed for a minute
that Aunt Mary had any idea of
the smart up-to-date story that
was almost always a dissertation
in epigram, on the eternal tri-
angle.
"Margie," she continued earn
estly, II think our drama and
! most of our other literature is al
wrong. We, or rather you mod
erners pride yourselves on the
truth and so your drama is most
~ supposed history of shatter-
ing the seventh commandment.
OF course, there are a few thieves
and murderers put in for goou
measure but the fact remains that
II by some alchemy the seventh
command of God should have
fallen out of the decalogue when
Moses broke those tablets of stone
literally instead of metaphorical-
ly we would have had very little
to read in books or to see in the
theaters today
But, Aunt Mary, the tempta-
ton of the flesh was brought into
the world in the Garden of Eden
: by the devil, and the world, the
flesh and the devil have been in
separable evAr since"
But, my dear, the present
generation is coming to think
there is nothing interesting in
this world but the flesh. and the
devil"
I'm other words goodness has
gone out of fashion," I asked.
We'll, 1t has been pronounced
uninteresting and to be uninter'
esting is to be damned forever
"Why is vice more interesting
than virtue, Margie, today?
think it is because goodness is 6
negative virtue and yielding t.
temptation implies at least &C
tion."
"In other words, Aunt Mary
you thing one can be good with
out doing anything and that yor
cannot be the least bit bad with
out doing something bad"
You've got it, Margie," an
, swered Aunt Mary with a smile
, as she unconsciously spoke in the
somewhat slangy language OF
DICK. we VIII never DeCoIut
, good as people until we make
: goodness interesting, until oul
= great newspapers will put theil
. finest writer's and devote the mos
space to the recounting Of good
deeds instead of doing directly
= the opposite. Just this morning
the whole front page of our morn
ing paper was filled with the
grewsome details of the murder
of a woman and little two-year
, old baby by a degenerate boy Of
81, while less than six paragraphs
was given to the box of the same
age who voluntarily gave one
pint of his young blood to save
the life of an anaemic mother tc
her family.
Isn't It possible to make this
faction as dramatic as the first?'
Perhaps SO. dear Aunt Mary,
said Mollie who had just come in
but I'd hate to try 1t and be thu
one to make the city editors o.
any Of the newspaper see It,"
(To be continued tomorrow
: