davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
New-York tribune., 1920-04-16
Straddle Words
Editor of The Tribune

To the Editor Of The Tribune.
Sir: Two words of somewhat SINH
lar meaning sometimes coalesce, so
to say, and the combination is all the
morc vivid and emphatic.
A classic instance is that of the
lawyer who came into court still con-
slderably obfusticated after a night
spent in sitting up with a sick friend
and found himself utterly unable to
comprehend, much less reply to, the
arguments of his opponent. Rising
unsteadily to answer he said: "Y'r
honor, 1 beg to s'mit tina tn Arguments
i NH learnd 'ponent r entirely N
completely putile," combining quite
handily futile and puerile.
My younger boy particularly dislikes
cereals. When oatmeal was pressed
upon him on a recent morning he an
pealed to his elder brother "Dick, isn't
this stuff distasteable ?" quite happy
wedding of distasteful and detestable.
The prize specimen Of my collection
OF "straddle words" however. was
added only to-day. IA colored man ap
reared at my back door this rainy
morning and preferred request for
piece of junk that was in the way in
the back yard; to be specific, it was
the iron wheel of wheelbarrow with
few shreds of the original barrow
adhering. OF course, he could have
it,; was glad to have it taken away;
was there anything else he could take
along and save me the trouble Of pick
ing up? "No, boss, that wheels all I
en- use. You see, / got wheelbarrer
that's pretty good. all but the wheel,
and that's done collapsdated. That's
so good combination of collapsed and
dilapidated that you can scarcely see
the joint.
I'll trade junk any day for ms good
straddle word as that.
M. r. WELLER
New Rochelle, r. Y, April IS, 1920.
New-York tribune., 1920-04-16
The Emanuel Celebration

The celebration of the seventy
fifth anniversary of the organization
of the Congregation Emanuel, to
begin this evening, will be an occa-
sion of interesting reminiscence and
historical review.
In 1S48, three years after the con-
gregation was founded, the total
Jewish population of the United
States, according to the calculations
Of M. A. Bark, was $4,000. In 1880,
according to William B. Hacken-
berg, there was Jewish population
of 230,257, while the latest estimate
places the number in the city of
New York alone at more than
100000, about so per cent more
than the combined Jewish popula-
ton of the United Kingdom, Ger
many, France, Belgium and Italy.
New York is, and has been for some
years, the largest Jewish city in the
world, having more members of the
ancient race living south of Four
teenth Street than there are in all
Palestine.
The principal influx was from the
countries where Jews had been de-
MED civil rights, and the immigrants
brought with them many of their
ancient and Oriental customs, many
of which were not in consonance
with their new surroundings; but,
having been clung to in slavery and
oppression, there was natural oppo-
sition to renouncing them in a land
of freedom.
Farseeing Jews seemed to have
sensed the immigration, with New
York the objective point, and the
movement for American Reform
judaism was the result. The Con-
gregation Emanuel was one of the
first to Americanize, and it's found
ers and those who have followed
them have consistently adhered to
the principle that no man can be
good Jew who is not a good citizen,
and the advocates Of Jewish nation
alism in it's various guises found lit
tie support in the Temple Emanuel.
One of the foremost in the strug
gle for reform, Rabbi Isaac M. Wise,
who began his Amoricanization cam
paign in Albany in 1861, came from
his home in Cincinnati in 1863 to
deliver the dedication sermon in the
temple where the celebration will
take place. eve must be not on)v
American citizens, but we must be-
| come Americans also through and
through, outside of the synagogue.
was the doctrine which he preached,
Years later, when the wave Of Jew
ish nationalism was high, Rabbi
Wise said the reform Jew reprc.
New-York tribune., 1920-04-16
Stitches in Time

Good, sound American sense is be-
hind the overall clubs and their
equally laudable sisters, the apron
clubs. The more brogan clubs and
denim clubs there are the better.
The country can stand a lot of econ
omy and thrift and old clothes and
older shoes and a general simplifica-
tion of life without deranging any
thing more serious than few snob-
bish customers.
If all this organization came as
the result of boosting from a central
headquarters-att by the para
phernalia of propaganda now all too
familiar to our much propagandized
minds-there would be little hope for
it's success. Plainly the eruption of
like protests from every quarter Of
the country-Dover, New Hampshire,
shaking hands with Charlotte, North
Cardinals nothing of the sort. 1t
really looks as if old American good
nature, the patient butt of a million
fakes and frauds and gougers and
tricksters, had at last begun to mar
row it's grin and to face the high
cost of existing with something more
than wheezes supported by nonsensi-
cal threats from governmental off,
cials operating in the future tense.
There need be no fear that Ameri-
cans will become parsimonious and
upset our whole scale Of living, and
Herewith our elaborate system Of
production. There is an imitation
operating psychologically as we'll as
the purely monetary article. The
former inevitably accompanies the
latter. What goes up must ulti-
mately come down; but while things
are going up it is human nature to
join the boosting process. What the
overall clubs can do is to tame the
vicious and needless and extrava-
CANT spending of which nine Ameri-
cans out of ten are guilty. The one
tenth will benefit from the return of
common sense quite as much as the
nine-tenths. So will every legiti-
mate business.
If we are to avoid a panic, or at
any rate lessen it's violence, we must
begin to economize and save and con-
serve long before the earthquake is
upon us. More power to the new
movement, therefore! May it spread
and prosper not only in the matter
of clothes, but in every item on the
family budget!
New-York tribune., 1920-04-16
Let No Man Forget!

The uery idea of the pooer and
The right of the people to establish
government presupposes the duty of
eresy indiuid.al to obey the estab-
ished government. All instructions
to the execution of the la10S, all
combinations and associations, 1tnder
sUhateuey plausible character, qVith
the real design to direct, control,
counterfeit or ave the regular del'b-
GRAFTON and action of the constituted
authorities, are destructive of this
fundamental principle, and of fatal
tendency. They serve to organize
faction, to give 1t an artificial and
extraordinary force; to put, IN the
place of the delegated aoill of the
nation, the acal of party, often a
small but arttul and enterprasimg
minority of the community. .
Hoacever combinations or associa-
tions of the above description may
now and then amsaoer popular ends,
they are likely, IN the course of time
and things, to become potent engines,
By aUhich canning, ambitious and
umprincipled men aUiu be enabled to
subuert the poauer of the people and
to usurp for themselves the reins
of government, destroying after
acard the re''y engines avhich haze
lifted them to unjust dominion
From Washington's Farewell Ad-
dress,
New-York tribune., 1920-04-16
The Abolition Of Vice

To the Editor of The Tribune.
Sir: l think your correspondent, N.Y.
Hodgins. who says that "vce" shoui'
be abolished. is quite right. ! tnihk.
too, that the law of gravitation shou'o
be abolished. Many promising young
airman has fallen to his death because
of gravitation. Abolish Il. by all means
But to tell the truth, the "loathsoh'e
plague" of which Mr. Hodgins writes
fourishcs best when vice" is hunsea
and covert This disease does no'
necessarily accompany "vice." 1t m'gn'
be utterly abolished" if it were fough'
openly. This. to my way of thinking
would be more reasonable than trying
to make water run up hill.
JOSEPH BoWDITCA
New York. April 1s, 1920.
New-York tribune., 1920-04-16
Po2L, By
DOONo Heywood Broun

has character. He has publisher
from whom he can never extract money.
What do you think he did?
"Mr. jenkins shook a dubious head
He went to the publishers office
and demanded payment. There was
nothing doing. Without ceremony he
seized the publisher by the beard and
announced his intention of hanging on
until he got cheque He got his
money
THAT continued the author re-
morselessly, as he fixed speculative
eye upon Mr.. Jenkins's clean -shaven
chin, is why very few publishers wear
beards''
AS the car turned through Eighth
Street, then north upon the avenue"
writes Louis Joseph Vance, in "The
Dark Mirror" Istudiously dissipated
Greenwich Villagers were seeping into
the cafe of the Brevoort, all yawning
to be different She envied them
desperately, whose one desire was to be
normal, commonplace, an everyday girl
with no secret eccentricity to stand
between her and love"
What with John Roach Straton and
Mr.. Vance dissipation and eccentricity
are being made too darn easy. If a
dinner at the Brevoort may be classi
fed as wild oat,' lot of us are
going to expand with pleasure at the
discovery of purple past with which
we had never credited ourselves. As a
matter of fact, Mr.. Vance's heroine
need not have taken it all out in envy
She might have seeped in with the
others without much harm. The
author could have provided that in the
last chapter the hero should take her
to dinner at the Martha Washington
and make an honest woman of her.
New-York tribune., 1920-04-16
The Job Destroyers

Since the signing of the armistice
a door has stood open to save for our
masses the benefits of the great
stimulus the war gave to industry
and to life.
We had before US a great object
lesson which taught not merely that
individual workers could do more,
but that harmonious social co0pera-
ton could achieve miracles. A great
opportunity beckoned to our people
to apply their energy more intelli-
gently. To keep the dollar at its old
purchasing power while maintaining
wages at the new levels but one thing
was needed, and that was to swell
production.
Alas. it was not done. The delu-
sion seized hold of our labor organi-
cations and those responding to their
leadership that men could create less
and at the same time get more.
This can't be done-never has
been done and never will be done. It
is no more possible to set aside the
law that the sum Of distribution can
not exceed the total of production
than it is to suspend the law of
gravity. Complain of this law as
much as you please; there it stands,
irrepealable and Indifferent to all
railing.
Back of all the industrial disturb
ances turks the unfounded assump-
tion that the way to get more is to
do less. From every part of the
country comes the report of decline
in per capita production despite the
rise in nominal wages. OF course,
men often find that the new wages
do not buy as much in food, in
clothes and rent as did the old.
1t could not be otherwise. A de-
cline in real wages is the inevitable
consequence of the failure of the
average worker to create as much as
formerly. No strike, legal or illegal,
is able to increase real wages over
any considerable period. Only by
enlarging per capita production do
real wages rise.
Our people-for our laboring
masses are our people-have been
guilty OF great folly and must pay
the price folly always collects. In
dustrial cquipoise now promises to
come another way. The highway of
increased production not having been
taken, 1t looks az If we must floun-
der through the mire of smaller de-
mand and lcssened consumption
which is another way Of describin,,
a lower standard Of living.
Unless those commanding the con.
Hdence OF our wage-earning masses
nave the intelligence and the COURAGE
TO provide different sort of leader
ship than they have revealed dnr;ny
The last eighteen months we cannot
nope TO escape seeing in the not dis.
tant future Iesscning Of consump-
ton whose effect will be non, p.
mert. 1t il impossible TO-
ever TO spiral upwart
they 80 the greater u
ausnt fall. Ever,
New-York tribune., 1920-04-16

Admirers Present Arguments ii
Rcbuttal
To the Editor of The Tribune.

To the Editor of The Tribune
Sir: AS a lover of political contro-
versy | long for some system of open
ouija boards openly arrived at, to keep
the public accurately informed as to
what side our departed great men are
taking in present day matters of dis
pute. AS things stand now, any partisan
can rally the dead to support his side
and the dead have no chance to say
what they really think.
The most recent case in point is con-
tanned in w. T. MS letter, opposing the
candidacy of Mr.. Hoover, which ap-
peared in your Monday issue. In this he
attempts to prove by reductio ad ab-
surddm that the fathers of our Consttu-
ton meant by the provision "no person
shall be eligible to the office of
President who shall not have
been fourteen years a resident of the
United States" fourteen years Of resi-
dence Immediately preceding his candi-
dacy.
This is a doubtful method of argu-
ment anyway, because the absurdity
can always be reversed, and the inquiry
made: Does W. T. N. suppose the fathers
intended to make ineligible q man born
in this country and residing in it all
his life. except the thirteenth year pre-
vious to his candidacy?
The writer's of our Constitution were
men of sense, several of them lawyers
trained to exact expression of meaning.
l therefore consider it safest to sup
pose they meant what they said, neither
more nor less
If man fulflls the constitutional re-
quirements for the Presidency the Con-
stitution leaves it to the voteru to decide
whether he is the best man for the office
And since the fathers are not here to
say who their choice would be, l think
any mere assertion of their opinion
weak argument. A. ]. S.
New York, April 13, 1920.
New-York tribune., 1920-04-16
Vast knowledge, Little Action

Vast knowledge, Little Action
Attorney General Palmer, accord
ing to his own accounts, has very
wide-awake information service. He
says now that he had the present
railroad walk-out in mind when he
warned the country several months
ago about soviet activities in this
country. He tells US that the same
men are behind the railroad hold-up
as were behind the abortive steel
strike last winter. He says he
knows the dates set for other soviet
lied labor demonstrations
Mr.. Palmer excites awe as sleuth.
But when it comes to preventive
or deterrent action he doesn't
greatly impress the imagination. He
informed the country last summer
that there was going to be marked
decrease in the cost Of necessaries
Of life. Having recommended and
secured an extension and enlarge
ment Of the Lever act, he threatened
to bring all the power of the De-
partment of Justice to bear to punish
profteers and end profteering. We
read about agents of his, including
the mysterious Mr.. Figg, operating
in this community and that. But
where are the much heralded prose-
cutions and convictions Of profiteers?
What has become of the promised
decrease in prices of food and
clothing?
During the war years the price of
sugar was held, by government ac-
ton, practically down to pre-war
levels. Since the armistice it has
risen 100 per cent or more, and the
blame for this has been laid by
many Investigators in Congress at
Mr.. Palmer's door. The Attorney
General decided not long ago on a
cleanup Of dangerous alien "Reds."
But deportations ceased suddenly,
and it is now charged that the AS
sistant Secretary of Labor was in
strumental in shutting off no-return-
ticket passenger traffic to Russia.
When asked on Wednesday what
he was going to do to restrain soviet
lied strike activity, Mr.. Palmer re-
marked: "First, I am going to tell
the public about it. There will be
other things done later, but that is
all I care to do now." This policy
was suddenly modified by the arrest
yesterday of various railroad walk
out leaders. But if yesterday, why
not two or three days ago?
There is a strike on to-day in this
city among the workers employed in
transporting perishable foods from
the railroad terminals to the chief
market centers. One of the effects
of this blockade, if it is successful,
will be to destroy vast quantities of
fruits and vegetables. The Lever
law forbids conspiracies to limit the
facilities for the transportation of
food or to restrict the distribution
of necessaries. The strikers are
manifestly violating the Lever law.
But Mr.. Palmer is still meditating in
Washington.
1t is we'll enough to have a great
sleuth and prognosticator at the
head Of the Department Of Justice.
But it would be better to have an
Attorney General who acts promptly
and vigorously on his skilfully ac-
cumulated volume of advance in
formation.
New-York tribune., 1920-04-16
Solving the Gasoline Problem

tFfom the Philadelphia Record
II, az stated in a vorncious New York
dispatch, handful OF raisns, properly
treated. is powerful enough to blow tho
front out OF fruit store, It might be
worth while to try the effect of raisin
or 80 in tankful Of the grade
gasoline with which motorists are en-
denvor'ng TO Apropel their cars this
New-York tribune., 1920-04-16

"The element of fairness in New
Yorks spirit" he says, "has been re-
markably illustrated in the way in which
the great New York papers have printed
large extracts from the messages pub
lished in this book" Now, we believe
that the papers are fairer than most
other businesses; but the way they have
played up the Straton sermons proves
only that they have good news sense,
IN which they are not dissimlar, per-
haps, to the Dr.
New-York tribune., 1920-04-16

can purchase msrahandss sdvertl'sda 10
sion result, In lay esss THE TRIBUNE guarantees
10 pay your msnsy back upon rsauest. Ne red tase
Ne suihhline W. make good promptly u the
advertiser dsss not.
New-York tribune., 1920-04-16

MEMBER OF THE ASSUCfAILD tNISS
The Associated Press is exclusively entitled 70 ths
ss~ for republication Of all dispatches credltsC
to Il or not otherwise credited In this paper @nu
also the local d spontaneous origin puonshss
herein. ..
All rights Of republication Of all Other matter
Asresn also reserved.
New-York tribune., 1920-04-16

labor will adjure it to get on its job
and stay there until such time as
production is normal once more.
New-York tribune., 1920-04-16


call it the "'Bal Bleu' Ball"?
"Fashion drives many American
women to lace themselves until forms
are ruined and health is wrecked" Now
we don't get around the way some do.
being what you might call Home Body.
but if the DR.. will show us one American
woman who laces nowadays, we will give
him one harcoth hustle.
Now Dr.. Straton says that for wears
he had the privilege of teaching ora
tory and the Interpretation of litera
ture in one of our universities" Yet he
splits infinitives, omits the serial comma.
and misquotes {including splitting the
couplet) thus:
"Sad fares the land,
To Fastening ills p~ey,
Where wealth accumulates,
And men decay"
He mentions "Rabbi Hirsch, of Tenn
pie Israel, Chicago" when anybody who
heard that virle teachers moral and
optimistic wrath every Sunday for fiji
teen years knows it was Sinai Temple:
as George Hamlin, the W. k. tenor, will
testify. And he refers always to "Vill-
lam Winters"
Rag music? Yes, oceans of it!
After the Ball. Johnny, Get Your Hair
Cut 'Goo-Goo Eyes, and 'Everybody's
Doing It, until one cannot walk the
streets without having ones ears Of
Tended with the discordant jangling Of
barbarous sounds" "After the Ball" rag
time, Dr.? after the Ball" is highly
moral song, and not ragtime at all. 1t
was "Johnny, Get Your Cum" Dr., and
that wasn't ragtime; neither was the
parody, "Chippy, Get Your Hair Gut"
"Goo-Goo Eyes" wasn't ragtime;
"Everybody's Doing 1t" was.
To prove that we should be monoga-
nous, the DR.. cites the lower animals.
| But the lower animals didn't drive motor
cars or read books. They didn't even go
to church.
THE average Sunday newspaper"
foams the Rev. Straton, "is conglom-
GRAFTON Of advertisements, market re-
ports, baseball slang, political hurrah,
society scandals, Bowery murders, silly
sentiment, Buster Brown humor and
utiltarian ethics" There the DR.. utters
a mawful. Except the Bowery murders.
A Park Avenue or a Riverside Drive
murder is worth two columns to Bow
cry murders two sticks.
But why only the Sunday newspaper,
Dr.? 1s not the Mon.-Sat incl. news
paper full Of the same porridge? Why
10 acetic against the Sunday paper?
Can IL be because 1t has no Coming
Tower7
New-York tribune., 1920-04-16

Owned and pusnshsd daily BY New York TrfsuAs
fac.. New Yora Cooperation. Ogden Reid. rresi-
dent: @. ve<ncr Rogers. vies-rrssidsat: HsIsa
rogers Reid Secretary: y. r. Ma1neld. Treasurer
Address. Tribune Building. l5% Nassau Street. New
Ysrk. Telephone BeekAan 3see.
New-York tribune., 1920-04-16

To the Editor of Tie Tribune
Sir: The two letters headed anti
Hooveritis" in to-day's paper were very
interesting, and I am glad you published
them as they show you are not afraid to
publish the carpings of partisans. 1t is
the Independent manner in which YOU
treat politics that is making me a dailv
reader of your paper.
The first letter says, "If I don't see
Hoover editorial | see a silly pro-
Hoover cartoon by Ding" I fail to
observe in any degree the first accusa-
ton, and as to the second, l say, more
power to ding I think he is second
to none. l bar no one
don't know so very much about Mr.
Johnson, but l do know this A friend,
native of California, has just returned
from visit to her former home in San
Francisco, and her friends there urged
her to do all she could against Senator
Johnson's nomination. If Mr.. Olson
wants the name Of this lady will cheer
lully give IL, Dut VIII 1lTSC warn MIN
she stands full six feet, weighs 24O
pounds, and her husband is her counter
part. l did want to make a mere men,
tion Of the letter Of the brave fellow
whose cognomcn is "Old Atlantic City
Reader"
AS remember his argument, it seems
Hoover's only chance in the race for
the Presidency comes from the "women, !"
because "Hoover fed women and chill
dren" on the other side during and
after the war. This fact alone is
enough to bring out big women's vote,
to say nothing of the thousands of men
whose hearts and souls are filled with
humanity.
In casting my first Presidential vote
which will probably not be for the
same man as you will choose wish to
state | have still an "open mind" and
will make no selection until after the
conventions in Chicago and San Fran
cisco, but l admire you for giving all
candidates a square deal, even to Social
lists and radicals-much as | despise
them. ROZA INGRAM ODEII,.
New Rochelle, April ID, 1920.
New-York tribune., 1920-04-16
RANTv

Entered at the Fostoencs at New York - SecsnA
Cas- Mail Matter
New-York tribune., 1920-04-16

1t is Mr.. Rodney Richmond's impress
sion that in 1908 it was Fannie Brice
who sang "Has Anybody Seen My Hus-
band ?"
New-York tribune., 1920-04-16

Old Bill Hard approves of our re-
vision of Upton Sinclair's newspaper
board selection. "And then," he writes,
"the board should discard the myth of
editorial solidarity, and each fellow
should sign his own editorial wander
ings personally and singularly, and after
each accepted contributed article there
should be some such line as accepted
and inserted by the insistence of Her
bert Hoover against the violent opposi
ton of that poor prune, B. HARD"
New-York tribune., 1920-04-16
To the Editor of The Tribune.

To the Editor Of The Tribune.
Sir: AS lifelong friend of Hoover
am particularly pleased with your edi-
toral entitled "Vale the Favorite Sort"
in your issue Of April 8. If the Re-
publican party only understood the dan
ger Of defeat if they put up Johnson and
were not quite so cocky about winning
with any sort of man, it would show
greater wisdom. In our Hoover clubs
lot of Democrats are changing over to
the Republican party in order to work
for Hoover. The Independent vote in
this country at present is not to be
sneered at, and l am glad you see the
point. CASPAR W. HODGsON.
Yonkers, N. Y, April ID, 1920.
New-York tribune., 1920-04-16

II have not sorrened the messages.
eitner," says DR.. Straton, "by 'retouch-
ing them" (The DR.. is great en-
ployer of "quotes"; once he speaks of
"golf.") He has softened them, though,
by indulgence in italics and exclama-
tion points.