The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-09-08
ON SECOND THOUGHT
BY JAY E. HOUSE.
(From Philadelpaia Public Ledger,

LAS one to whom daily newspaper
reading is part of his life.'' writes Old
Guard, IT am really distressed at the
pifne-which now. constitutes Journal
ism" For twenty-five years we have
been daily distressed by the piffle
printed in the newspapers. We've
written columns of piffle condemning
it. But, comparatively speaking, the
amount of piffle has neither increased
nor diminished in that time. The
trouble. we suspect, is that what is
piffle7 to one man is wisdom to an
other, and we don't suppose anything
can be done about it.
We came to the office one morning
not long ago surcharged with disgust
as result of a story that had been
printed in the paper. We expressed
that disgust spontaneously and Violent
iy to the wise heads who gathered
around a table to sit in judgment on
the world. We lost the argument
without making a convert Every
body else Thought it good story
Haywood Breun thinks newspaper
columnists the worst poker players
in the world. We don't think there
is any such thing as a good poker
player or a bad one. A poker player
is either lucky or unlucky; that is all
there is to it. We know all the poker
any man of average intellectual ca
pacity can >assimilate. We are wise to
all the axionas, old saws and clever
cracks that pertain 10 the game. But
we can't beat anybody playing it.
Byron Willcutts was the best poker
player we ever knew. By which we
mean he was the iuckiest Whatever
he needed to give him the top hand
he got in the draw. His luck made
him one of the grandest poker players
the world ever saw.
We note, incidentally. that the es-
teemed United States senate is con-
in elections. That is a sad gesture
and a futile one. A candidate and his
friends will spend as much as is
needed. Usually it is all they can get
And no power on earth can stop them.
It is, to be regretted that this is so.
As a plain, plug citizen, we ARE. per-
fectly willing to deplore the custom,
| if that is our duty in the circum-
| stances. But we don't enjoy being
''kidded" by congress and we resent
this attempt to do IT.
| If, we go on to say, If we have got
to be ''kidded," we want it done by
| somebody who has a sense of humor.
Those who enjoy the physiological
prowling of Hutehinson-and he does
| do itsTin a perfectly. fascinating way
will find This Freedom" interesting.
We got three-quarters of the way thru
the book before it palled upon US
and that is high praise. We find
what seems to US to be the perfect
| analogy to This Freedom in Mrs.
Bode Tybairs garden.
| ha Ia Ttxrta No., =
home on Grant street. But, the serv-
ant question being what il is and Mrs.
! Tyball having no great gift of domes-
ITCHY, they take their meals out and
/ have done so for a score of years. One
of Mrs. Tyballs obsessions is a kitchen
garden. She had no manner of use
for a garden, but plot of ground
some fifty by fifty feet in the rear of
! the house is SO designated and de-
Iscribed in the family directory. Every
ispring Mrs. Tyball has twelve or fif-
Eteen loads of fertilizer dumped on that
plot of ground. After the warmatlsys
come and the earth begins to dry, the
lawn sprinkler plays upon it night
| and morning. Occasionally, say, as
often as once every other year. Mrs.
| Tybau plants g. few. early vegeta bles.
But along about the middle of June
! they close the house and go away for
| the summer. and that is the last of
Mrs. Tybalrs garden until the follow
ing spring. ..
/! Mr.. Hutchinson's heroine, Resale.
is Elementary and diaphanous. Oc-
casionally, say, twice in a century, one
| such may be born. But, in the large
sense she hardly exists. OF those
| born probably not more than one in
every four. would want to stick to
business after she had acquired a per-
| feet husband, who gave her a beautiful
| home, and had, become the mother of
| adorable babies. Mr.. Hutchinson has
/ fertilized a slender theme with a
wealth of physiological humus and
nitrogen. He has leavened it with his
imagery and watered it with epigrams.
But it is all as unimportant as Mrs.
Bode Tyballs garden.
The National Confectioners' asso-
citation has set aside Saturday, Octo-
| Der IA, as the date for the annual OBJ
ServanCe of "Candy Day" thruOut the