The Chattanooga news. [volume] (Chattanooga, Tenn.) 1891-1939, 1920-03-19
(BY HERBERT COREY.

New York, March 19.-There Il
something wrong with the eastern
school boy. Or maybe he Ia Just diff
ferent, Anyhow, Melvin A. Rice
president OF the New Jersey public
school commission, will swear that
he is not running true to the an
cestral pattern.
II thought during tho war;" said
Mr.. Rice that our boys would like
to learn to shoot.
well, that was a sort Of q natural
sort Of thought, wasn't It? In the
| good old days 1t was not necessary
to drag In a war as an excuse for
a boy learning how to shoot. Most
boys learned by stealing daddy's
shotgun and resting 1t on the third
rail Of the fence. II was Just to
save the old gun--it had been q ia
vorite OF his, you see--that dad pre-
scented the wonderful new SINGLE
barrel that smelled SO marvellously
OF clean oil when the birthday came
around. Anyhow. Mr.. Rice thought he
would give the school boys of New
Jersey a chance to learn how to
shoot II they wanted to.
Rice Real Hustler.
What Rice wants to do he gen.
orally manages to get done. He Is
the head of a great linen importing
house in New York, and when the
war broke out every one on earth
took a whack at his linen business.
The Germans seized his factories In
Belgium, and the Austrians inter-
fered with his business in central
Europe, and the Irish factories be-
gan to turn out Irish linens for
va 20 a NJ
Sim Fein rag. No one cared for
Mr.. Rice. No one cared for a neu-
trail anyhow, In those days. So Mr..
Rice cared for himself.
Just how he did 1t and what he
did no ono knows. But he managed
to, battle his way into Austria and
Germany and Belgium and Ireland
and all the other places where his in
terests were being imperiued--which
Is q potter way of telling the truth
than to say destroyed-aIid somehow
he won at least moral victory, as
the communicates used to say. Vic
tories against polite but tmper-
meable British government and an
impoiite but quite as impermeable
German government were only won
in those days by he-men, So that you
can get Rice's number.
Planned Jersey Rife School.
He may have had in his mind re-
turn to the pioneer status, when
every American was supposed as a
matter of course to know how 70
shoot. Certainly. with ell the talk
that nils the press about the neces-
sity of, preparedness and universal
training and whatnot, his idea seemed
to have been timely. The war dis
closed the somewhat horrifying fact
that an American is not born rifle
man any more than he is a born bull
fighter. He must learn TO shoot q
gun Just as scions of less gifted ma
tons do. But Mr.. Rice did have rea-
son to think that the Jersey school
boy would be ticl1led pink at the
chance to learn. Boy nature, he
thought, had not materially changed. !
''Will you loan us the guns?" he |
asked a. sporting goods f1rm. "I'll |
provide the ammunition
He thought he would make an ex-
pertinent ON q small scale, not being |
one to dive into q pool before he |
finds out whether he might touch |
bottom with his head. He selected |
a high school In a certain town in !
New Jersey. The boys were all OF |
good parentage. They were as lively /
as set of crickets. They could play
the keys off the ulSulele and the ba-
zinga and sing maddening melodies
with their foretops touching. OF a
white painted Saturday afternoon, on
their way to the tennis court, they J
might step right onto a magazine
cover.
Time, typical Americans boys"
Mr.. Rice. A glow reached his heart
He yearned over them.
Why the Boys Were Cold.i
But, somehow. the boys did not warm
up. They listened with irreproachable
when the terms of the offer
were stated to them. Not one so much
as raised a neatly brushed eyebrow.