The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1922-05-11
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HERE LIES MANS ANCIENT ENEMY.
DILL CARE
wHo plsINrEKs THE UNLovED CJss.
/ BEWARkt

MUST we remind our contribs that Sunday
is Mothers Day? 1t would be nice-don.t you
think 4-if we could fill the colyum next Satur-
day with say half a dozen or so tributes TO
mother both prose and verse. But we fear it is
too late now. However, if Pegasus is properly
spurred it may be possible to turn this coiyum
over to Mother on May IL. Oner1ngs shoulo
reach US not later than Friday afternoon. May
we count on your W. k hearty cooperation?
Thanks; we need day on
A BOUQUET OF THoRNs (AND RosEs) FOR
RED.
Dear r E. Meg: You know the business
of running The Tombstone better than do, OF
course but l cannot refrain from asking the
question: Why all the Red lately?
Not that your sprightly contributor IN his
essays and answers does not entertain me; and
not that don't wholeheartedly agree. Never
theless, he is most of the time saying the OBJ
vious and seeking to give it the aspect of pro-
fundity It's all true, say but, since everyone
knows it and everyone who intends TO act upon
his knowledge is doing so already, why should
this young man (that he is oh so very young
is as plain the nose on ones face) wear
himself out fitting against windmlls and boring
those who might otherwise be his supporters
I know Reds type-a fairly good-looking
young chap, only few years out OF college,
hair parted in the middle and brushed till it
shines. He dances we'll is popular, and is
probably more conceited than the average
recent alumnus. l can't possibly deny that
he is clever in a smart. Donald Ogden Stewart
ish sort of way. I'll wager that he is an ardent
reader of Smart Set and Vanity Fair. He un-
doubtedly was prominent in college, probably
helped edit the school paper and was on the
board that got out the Awful" number of the
college magazine.
He has a modicum of literary ability that
may, and 1 hope will, increase with the years
He has more than the usual facility in the
use CT English. But he lacks experience and
hence what he writes is not original-not even
in style-but easily recognizable limitations of
his favorites. Some of his more violent
productions are merely the self-conscious and
frequently silly posturings of a young man de-
termined to be cynical, disillusioned, brilliant,
literary and iconoclastic.
His free verse is a palpable imitation of
Masters, whom he follows slavishly. His satir-
ical sketches are hasty compounds of Stewart,
Broun, Chappell, Strunsky and Buckley. The
few lyrics that have found their way from his
pen into your column to me to be at
tempts to versfy Repetition Generate. At
that, believe that Reds literary future, if any,
is as a lyriciSt
Don't misunderstood me like Reds stuff
just like him ten years ago. 1 agree
with him, as have said but 1 have learned
that it isn't necessary to talk so much. He
will, too bless him.
rest my case for less troubled atmos-
phere and bow my unworthy head to meet the
inevitable storm of Mencken. Dresser. Cabell,
Nietzsche, Runy lie Goncourt, Shaw, Ezra
Pound, Baudelaire-and 1 have no idea what
else.
Let me say in closing that find your col
umn high type I consider it among the six
are The Sun Dial. The Coming Tower The
Bowling Green, the Philosopher of Folly and
The Line as it used to be in the days of the
patron saint of Columnists. Mr.. Sigmund's last
poem was delightful. Sincerely,
MARK HEILMANN.
THERE Red; we disliked to do it. And it
had not been done were it not that we sort of
had bunch that you would have wished it.
Again. you can see for yourself that we couldn't
very well print the final paragraph without
printing those that preceded it, and not print
ing the final aph-name of a name!-I
that were untGinkable.
After thanking Mr.. Helmann for enabling
us to get this far down in the colyum with no
greater labor than tipping his comrnunica ton
we would suggest that he subscribe for the
Chicago Evening Post and add Cor substitute)
another colyum to his Six Best FelIers
In Which the Makeup Man Gets His Wireless
Crossed.
discovered in the revered parent sheet bv
LIE Moq.l