The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-11-23
ON SECOND THOUGHT
BYJAY e. HOUSE
(From Philadelphia Public Ledger.)

The announcement that Harvard
plans a lighter football schedule for
next year will occasion no surprise.
1t is the consensus of the best minds
of the country, our own among the
number, that both the Harvard and
Yale schedules have been too heavy.
This thing of playing two football
games every year is trying. 1t is a
tax on the members of the teams and
the undergraduate bodies and it inter-
feres with the courses in poker and
musical comedy. There is always the
danger, too, that some team from the
hinterland of football-one uHrecog-
nized by the elect OF the sport-will
slip the soporific wallop to Yale or
Harvard.
And that is a contingency ever to
be guarded against. We have a sug-
gestion to make in the connection
which we hope will meet with ap-
prevail. 1t is that Yale and Harvard
get together every year and play a
game for the championship of the
country and that such game Gf.all con-
stitute the football schedule for each
university.
If that suggestion doesn't wiring
acerbetic retort from the "old grads, -
this column has lost its cunning.
NIGdHWIIlGs we WOQ4Q 14Ol0 pdIICy
with the proofroom. Yesterday we
sought to use the word "honed." The
esteemed proofroom wouldn't stand
for it and substituted the word
hoped" which is something else
again. Occasionally, when poised in
physiological flight, we employ the
word premise" The esteemed proof
room invariably changes it to prom
ise." And so we crave one boon.
We are frank to admit we have no
gift with the semicolon. We are ever
at a loss when we daily with the ex-
clamation and interrogation points,
and we are much too leisurely in our
processes to keep pace with the style
board in the matter of capitalization.
But we do wish, when we imagine
we have. occasion to use "honed'' or
premise" or other classy little terms,
the esteemed proofroom would permit
at best There is no occasion for any
other department of this newspaper
to contribute to our delinquency.
If the esteemed proofroom desires to
make retort-if it is its wish that its
side of the case be presented-the
same will be duly printed in this
ton and punctuation are employed in
such presentation.
A Voice fipcs Up.
Sir-Who are the World War vet
Grams and where do they get their
authority to speak for the rank and
file of ex-soldiers in petitioning Presi-
dent Harding for the release of Debs?
As a member of the American
Legion, suggest they go before one
of the various posts with a petition
for his release and see what a. nice,
warm reception they are accorded
Debs has about as much chance of
getting Legion sympathy as Bergdon
mas u Ex-soLD1ER.
Speaking for the column, we do. not
know who the World War veterans
are. If we did know, we wouldn't
dast say it. 1t isn't done in the
columns of a newspaper.
C. F. w. saw in the paper where one
Donnelly, who was arrested for posing
as a solicitor for the Volunteers of
America, had collected $2.12 in
nickels- c. F. w. wants to know how
it was done.
Our gift is not that Of accurate COM
putation, and so we must needs pass
the query along to the reporter who
wrote the story.
zone sees beautiful young women in
hotel dining rooms nonchalantly light
ing cigarettes and as nonchalantly eX-
haling," said Mrs. Francis c. Burns, of
st. Louis, Mich, in speaking before
the National Council of Women Mrs.
beautiful young women do light
cigarettes nonchalantly. Did Mrs.
Burns live anywhere than in st. Louis
Mich, she would have noticed that
long ago.
Upon the point that women exhale
noncha1antly, the column is compelled
to take issue with Mrs. Burns. Not
one woman in a Thousand can do it.
Exhaling nonchalantly is the first am
bilious flight the average woman
smoker attempts; and it is the one
plishment of which she makes a mess.
Exha1ing nonchalantly, we go on to
say, is no mean feat for a man, and
many experienced NIKE smokers fail
to do it.
But we do string along with DR.. K.
Walter Barrett, of Alexandria, Va,
who says, Even more disgusting than
smoking among young women is to
see a sixty-year-oId vamp casting
languishing chances, at some young
fellow" If we are any judge of the
causes which contribute to disgust,
DR.. Barrett is richly justified in his
contention.
You take a middIe-aged chappie-
and we speak by the card when we
discuss middle-aged chappies-and
there is nothing which so disgusts,
annoys and disappoints him as to
find that the signal which he fondly
imagined was intended for him was in
reality directed at the good-looking
young chap just beyond him.
Up to q time a man is fifty he
works for fame. honor and a cornpe-
tence. After that he hopes some wom-
an will notice him and is satisfied If
she does
Anyway. 1t Was an Elegant Gesture.
Sir-Does the Hughesian gesture in
banishing the battleship furnish a
chance to frame an analogy with ref
erence to the experience of the man