Omaha daily bee., 1915-08-29
BY ELLA FLEISHldAN.

OWN AT THE STATE FAIR in Lincoln
next week the biggest attraction Is go
ing to be the baby show. And the big
gest feature of the baby show viii be
the contest for the prize winning baby,
the most perfect, nearest-the-1OO-mark baby
Maybe you think it's easy to be Judge In
baby contest and would like to apply for the po-
stion. Just close your eyes and picture yourself
surrounded by babies of every size and description
until oil look alike to you. Then people the back
ground with the mothers of each of these precious
infants, each OF them imbued with the con-
victon that other baby in the universe can hold
candle to her darling precious and then, hold
you're not going to be let off SO easy-and then
try to picture what would happen to you IL you
had to render a decision In favor Of only one of
these undisputed potentates.
Well, take it from US. the judges in a baby con-
test about popular, especially with the par
ents of the contestants an umpire who has given
a rotten decision is with the losing team.
Isn't him the sweetest, prettiest, little toot-
sums in all this wide world? And. John, do be-
lieve he looks Just like you'll"
From the moment of his advent into this world,
John Junior, although to the impartial eye moth
ing but red-faced, wrinkled weakened little per-
resembling nothing much an Indian pa
poose, assumes such pulchritudinous claims in his
mothers eyes as to warrant the strangers belief
potion in her eyes,
And John. remembering that he had been quite
a beau in his day and judged to cut some figure
go for his good looks, see no resemblance
beween his own Adonis-like cast of features and
that of the red-visaged newcomer. But knowing
that discretion is the better part of vaor he keeps
his peace.
When the infant grows a little older and begins
to manifest interest in this terrestrial sphere.
enough that his mother exclaims in at his
wonderous precocity. then John clears his throat,
thrusts back his shoulders puffs out his chest and
admits that his son takes after him.
From henceforth. father and mother are in
league to contest the claims of any other infant in
the class OF the most beautiful and smartest baby
in existence.
The first baby contests l. ever heard of were
contests to decide which the most beautiful
babies However, so dire were the consequences
on the judges, who were forced to flee from the
anger OF irate mothers who insisted that any
with half eye could see that their baby was far
more beautiful than the prize winning baby, that
these contests were given up.
In all recent baby shows. therefore. not beauty
but health, size, weight. proportion measurements
and other new-fanged ideas are the basis on which
baby contests are judged.
Imagine If you will, then, how much chance
Julius Caesar, "the lean and hungry Cassus," Will
lam Howard Taft Napoleon Bonaparte, JOHN EV-
ers Billy Sunday anybody else you please, would
have to walk away with the prize II baby contests
were popular in their day. Nary one.
But do the mothers, and sometimes the fathers,
display any more satisfaction over the decisions of
these judges than they did over the results in the
beauty contests? No. sir. They do not
What thin, sickly-looking infant that was
~ that won the prze!" exclaims the mother of one
that gives promise of some day qualifying as a
white hope
What there is prize-winnng about such