The Topeka state journal., 1921-12-24
ON SECOND THOUGHT
BY JAY E. HOUSE
tFrom Philadelphla Public Ledger.l

But there is, we are bound to aG-
init, more to Mr. Wheeler than a
superficial examination discloses. He
gets paid for doing it. Most of those
who peddle his stuff do it for nothing.
| Personally, as we have freuently
indicated, we shall not object if Mr..
Harding bestows Christmas gift
upon Mr. Debs and others The thing
to which we object is the disposition to
refer to them as political prisoners.
A man convicted of violating the law
and sent to the penitentiary for doing
SO is not a political prisoner.
Senator Borah's pessimistic outlook
| on the future of the world is natural
enough. The general indifference to
| Senator Borah is calculated to make
him pessimistic.
The moot uestion as to Lillian Rus
eselrs age is up again and is being
discussed at some length in the news
papers. A woman is as old as she
looks before breakfast. There's the
scenario; any intimate friend of Miss
Russell should be able to supply the
script.
It may be that the impulse to refer
| to Fannie Hurst as Mrs. Danielson"
occasionally seizes you. If so, we
warn you against such indulgences
The Lucy Stone League objects to it,
| and the secretary has written a letter
to the New York World to say so.
Miss Hurst, by the way. finds the
| ''fillum'' version of ''Star Dust so OBJ
| jectionable that she has commanded
! the producer to remove her name
from the publicity of the piece and
| it's conjunction with the title. Curl
1 ously enough. the incident reminds US
of a letter awe once received from
! Hiram Dillon, and which we still pre-
serve in our files of letters of the long
| ago.
| Governor Allen has sent the militia
| to stabilize order among the women
| in the Kansas coal-mining district.
How would you like to be a Kansas
militiaman with a loaded gun in your
hand and sixty rounds of good am
munition in your belt?
"There is nothing" burbles Hey
wood Broun, (which a man can do on
| a newspaper which some woman
! cannot do just as well as a little bet
ter"
You remember the old story? Well.
Mr. Broun gets the turkey.
We were not one of those who
| fawned upon Mr.. Wilson, but we did
grant to him the possession of ex-
tensive and unusual qualities. For
that reason we publicly deplored the
fact that Mr.. Tumulty had written a
book about him. We knew Mr.. Tum--
ulty would make a goon of him and.
proba bly,, q. widdlepit as well. 1t is
even worse than we had feared. Tum-
| ulty's Wilson is plain goo" and a
rather inferior quality of "goo" at
that.
Ultimately, we shall have other
books about Mr.. Wilson. Eventually,
the truth will be written 1t will be
very interesting and it will not re-
dound greatly to the discredit of the
defendant. But we shall not get the
truth until the case falls into the
hands of a good trial lawyer whose
only interst in the matter is the pro-
spective fee.
And that naturally brings up the
/ topic of soft assignments. Jay c.
typewrites to say his idea of soft as
signment is writing a review of Mr..
Tumulty's book for the New York
Times.
Jay c. has struck a resounding
chord, but, to change the simile, we
fancy we can outline a more alluring
scenario. Our notion of a soft as
signment would be that of looking
after DOC" Sawyer's practice.
For once the column finds itself Il
accord with Arthur Brisbane. We re-
fer, of course. to his esignation of the
! readers of his newspaper as "ea5y
marks"
Of~course, Mr.. Brisbane included
the entire American public in his
sweeping indictment, but that wee
mere strategy. Everybody knows who
he meant.