New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1918-04-12
A Challenge in Chins
C. F. l., in The Yale Alumni
Weekly
CHALLENGE has been issued to an

~ enrlre university by New Orh eQl-
torial writer who has thrown his
gauntlet full and fair against the juttng
chin, the mighty under-jaw. The editorial
appeared this March in The New York Trib-
une, but it is significant that we manage to
distinguish between the newspaper itself
and the writer who took his pen in hand.
Nowadays editorials, like individuals, must
be judged individually, and so we free The
Tribune from the stigma of reproach and
concentrate upon the unknown personality
that slaps Yale on the chin.
He finds it a coincidence worth noting
chat the American university of which the
bulldog is the symbol appears to have run
to this type of hero"-the square awed,
projecting chin. AS for himself, he takes
pointed pleasure in the chin Of George
Moore, which James Huneker described as
being "as diffident as poached egg" With
that poached-egg chin of Moore went
strength of mind that enabled him to tell
friends and enemies among the whole Irish
people just what he thought of them. "Men
have been shot for less in far more tenn
perate Chimes" Moore also, said the critic,
is not too difident to elk his Creator with
a melancholy, pale-blue eye-as he practi-
cally did in The Brook Kerith.'"
Now, no one will quarrel with the quail
ties attributed to George Moore and his
poached-egg chin. One may be glad that
man so adorned has other nober features
1t is perhaps secretly gratifying to US all
that the example seems to prove again
"there's no art to find the minds construc-
ton in the face" Here is no quarrel with
the poached-egg chin. Only if there is vir-
tue in it, why not cover the bulldog chin
with the same mantle of charity?
This sudden tierceness Of editor against
that university "of which the bulldog is the
SYMBOL places him under suspicion. Whom
does he admire? What has Roosevelt but
"A bulldog chin, sharpened a little by Canta-
brigham culture? What is it catches the
cartoonists eye in characterizing Woodrow
Wilson unless it be the bulldog chin with
a Princetonian attenuation? What has Her.
bert Hoover but similar chin that has
been in China?
But perhaps we do the chin challenger an
injustice. Perhaps another day, another
mood and then an attack on high foreheads
BY that route he might easily reach par
allel conclusion equally damning to Harvard
that: Balance, all-round strength of feat
head has just about as much significance in
human being as in yellow perch" And
after that he may write a paragraph or two
to show that long nose does not neces-
sarily betokcn a genius for organization.
Nor does long upper lip make Rookie
Teller. Nor has the evil eye as much influ-
as it is thought to have in Italy
In fine. we are with the editor heart and
soul if he is bent on showing up the
absurdity of snap judgment and what may
be called pgeonhole DECISIONS The world
wants everything classified and assorted
in pigeonholes. 1t wants to pick its men
by chin or a forehead or nose. Now
play like "Cyrano de Bergerac" may hang
from nose, but a character is not so
dependent. Nor is an executive man who
has the faculty merely of quick decision
Snap decision and snap judgment are the
curse of business world given over to
speed. The keenest judgment can be
pressed too hard. Witness the signifcan.
and warning cry of Mr. DAWSON, of the
Morgan firm, in moment of physical
and mental exhaustion not so long aga
my partners are killing mel" he is re-
ported to have said. Time must be taken
to Judge facts, individuals, events and edi
torlal writer's individually. Was it not a
pgconholc authority who looked at Russia
duu Atlu QulChiy. announcer french KeNOlO-
tion'-a mistake in Allied diplomacy cost
ing many lives and millions Of dollars?
Yes, surely the editorial writer is right
if he would put end to chin worship
He is right if he sides with H. G. Wells
IN lamentlng the tendency Of us all to Judge
by labels. to think by pgeonholes: to re-
gard life as a checkcrboard all set off in
nice regular squares. Life might be that
in less complicated world; but the here
and now seems rather a labyrinth to be
penetrated safely only when the slender
thread is caught up tcnderly and followed
reverently. That is the business of every
individual, be he poachcd-cgg or dread
nought.
Standardize machines, Liberty motors
automoblies-yes. Regard the body with
turkey, as mechanism But pay
religious attention to that variation in in
diVlduals which makes the difference be-
tween the French and the Russian revolu-
tons, the difference between this war and
an the wars that have gone before.
begin to dislike that editorial writer.
nut after all. George Moore can't do all
the fool things. even if ne actually hss
one OF those chins Of which mention has
been made.