The Seattle star. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1899-1947, 1921-03-18
stranger Than Fiction"
CTRANGE ARE THE TALES that fiction WI
Novelists' Imaginations Surpassed by
News Stories of the Week

CTRANGE ARE THE TALES that fiction writers
~ weave; marvellous their plots and wonderful the
ntrcaces of the action thru which their heroes hero
ines, vamps and villains pursue their tangled courses.
But, somehow, Old Dame Earth contrives to Guido
their widest fantasies For proof of this have but
consider two that have hlled the columns OF
the newspapers for some ten days.
Let us suppose that Robert w. Chambers and Iheo-
dore Dresser engage in competition, each to write
masterpiece in his welknown style, and each free to
place his characters in high position he thinks
the public imagination will permit.
= y y y
CHAMBERS, borrowing slightly from David Ora
~ ham Phillips, fixes his plot follows
The political boss of great state, whose name had
been before the last convention of his political party
presidential nominee, is discovered living IN adui-
terry with the wife of his nephew, to whom she had
been married that she might bear the politicians
name. In preparation for a cabinet appointment he
decides send the lady away and take back his wife
and children, who residing in a distant city Al
the last meeting between the clandestne lovers shot
is fired and the political power, maker OF presidents
and rising national figure, goes to his dcathbed with
the question unsettled: Was il accident murder?
What COULDN'T Chambers do with that-with
dash of Anna Katherine Green's inventveness in
making and solving mysteries, and his own expert
suggestiveness that makes his stories so popular with
the editors of the Cosmopolitan?
! "Of course" you would say, that could hap
pen-nothing like that could in the life of such
/ q
/ But Old Dame Earth fools you there. For that's
exactly what happened in the Jake Hamon murder
case that resulted yesterday in the acquta of Clara
Smith Hamon, after a week of sensational testimony
that carried the ramihcations of the Oklahoma boss
amours to the very doors of the White House-for
Jake lannon's widow appears to be an authentic rela
tive of the Hardings.
i Did Chambers ever imagine a startling story?
We think not.
i =
1 DREISER, in our supposititious competition,
chooses a different type for his masterpiece. U.s.
ing something of the groundwork Of THE Titan" he
imagines all-powerful hnancier, the president Of
the greatest banking institution the continent. His
theme usual, is unhappincss and love- He pictures
the wreckage of the financial wizards ome-intro-
duces his heroine the daughter of one of New
YorRs Oldest familes-and brcathes suggestions Of
a mysterious correspondents bronze Apollo"
French-Canadan Indian guide of the North woods
Enter the guide. A rough woodsman? No.
He turns out to be polished, cultured gentleman of
the old French school, who defends with dignity the
lady accused by her husband of nhdctes and leaves
wondering whether, after ALL the banker is not
victim of Authorizations. Add that the lady, althei
40 and the mother of three children, retains her
youthful beauty and is as charming an ingenuc
you have story which Dresser would find difficulty il
making plausible.
Yet that's the story behind the James A. Stillmar
divorce case-the husband head of the great Nation
al City bank the beautiful wife, a daughter of the
James Brown Potters famous in her youth as the
beautiful Eff; the Frenchman, the manager Of their
Canadian estate; with incidents as exciting as a raid
the estate managers home by private detectives in
which shots fred while pictures and letters said
to be discriminating, taken away at the command
of the enraged husband.
Truth is stranger than fiction" Byron wrote it, and
many no doubt, had said it before Byron. These two
unusual cases that just passing from the news
bring home again the truth of the old proverb.
y n r
THE INVENTORS of the airplane and the subma-
rine have outstripped the imaginations of Jules
Verne and Mother Shipman.
Already we get messages that purport to come from
spirits in the future world beings the other plan
ets-and while the average editor and the average
reader may not believe these things, many men of
scientific minds have faith.
About the only great ina ginatve novel that hasn't
been surpassed by fact is Fl. G. Wells 'War of the
Worlds"-and if an army should descend from Mars
in fleet of wingless arplanes and lay cities waste
with great swords of compressed sunbeams it
wouldn't probably keep the world awondering for
more than seven days.