The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-02-15

tions, our professional humorists should
 in reality be termed sanitarians. They
 are called up by the American spirit in
 much the same manner that certain
 corpuscles of the blood act as sanitary
 agents They serve up day by day a
 running commentary upon our obvious weaknesses The sociofogists tell us
 that whole people is in many respects
 essentially like an individual; and in
 our national life the professional hu- nnorists holds up the mirror to ourselves. This sort of grim, often sardonic, but generally wholesome introspection
 serves as invaluable purpose. In the midst of situations so serious that a shudder runs through us at our na- tional incompetence, they rise sponta- neously 10 the typogra phical surface Tn no race of people since the Greek commonwealth has this kind of thing been so sharply revealed.
 Our humor. call it what you will diff
 fers from the British product just as we differ nationally from the English It is the difference between baseball andScricket. Our humorous comments are briefer, quicker. more various and versatler offhand and superfieial-al though occasionally profound-than hose of our British cousins, who null over their humor more than we do Things move so rapidly in this coun ry. and our national temperament de- pands such constant changes, that the repetition of single ideas is not so likely with us to become a permanent affair, as in Great Britain.
 Leech's great work for Punch over 1; series of years dealt with comparatively 1 few subjects, riding to hounds being he favorite. There is probably 10 form )f horseback riding indulged in by country squires whic hhas not been depicted by Leech. Punch developed { ~egular set of stock subjects and re- ssued them later in separate volumes July classified These were under the read of Scotch humor, Irish humor, so- ciety, seashore, golf, clergymen, etc I For example. no one can possibly think )f an English curate but in the way he has been delineated in Punch
 It is true, doubtless, that in Amer .ca there is also stock of lay charac- l .ers-the hobo, the society girl, the plumber, the Bostonian, etc. But Amer caf as a country, covers much larger | irea than England's tight little isle l he audience is by no means so homo | ,eneous Many things that with us are l ommonplaces in California and Louis I jana would not be understood in New | CT sey and Maine. In short, there is 1 rot the same opportunity to make as 1 thorough a job of producing humorous 1 characters as in Great Britain IL Is 1 equally bootless to make comparisons l It is too easy to state, as was recently 1 stated by an anonymous writer 1T l Blackwood's, that the Americans have | no sense of humor. But that sort ol 1 remark, as an American would say 1 ioesn't get one anywhere. Americans I have A sense of humor, which is otter highly unsatisfactory, inelegant, if no i vulgar and pathetically crude. But | heir best humor is as human and de lightful. as elf-searching and univer- 1 sal as that of the Greeks. Besides 1 whatever may be it's purely literary
 1 faults, it is generally wholesome ano clean and outspoken.
 1 It is not commonly understood how valuable the services of our humor- 1 ists are. Let me put it briefly this 1 way What America depends upon 1T | it's power to assimulate information We move fast. It takes time to eau 1 cate a people-even as lively a people | as we are-up to given ssituatoh 1 Long -winded essays, correct and au' f thoritative as they may be. do not ge | with the crowd. But the professiona humorist comes forward with few ] delft touches and often reveals and H. luminates the essential, so that he who 1 runs may read In a. democracy like ours the professional humorists are l likely to be more effective than the philosophers, the savants or the moral | ists This is not cheerful, hilarious
 I nor mirth provoking essay but 1
 shoild be borne in mind that the de
 l tached study of humor is a very seri
 ous thing.