The Topeka state journal., 1922-03-09
ON SECOND THOUGHT
BY JAY z. HOUSE
(From Philadelphia Public LedEer.I

4
Bert williams has gone to his rest.
The realm OF comedy has lost one who
touched il with magic wand, the
world an Inspiration to clean and in
nocent laughter. devotees OF the
drama an exponent of its art who
never shamed them BY cheapness or
crudity. No finer chaplet OF virtues
may be woven TO the memory Of any
hummer. May his eternal sleep be
calm and peaceful.
/ We gather from the mail that drifts
to this desk that Mr.. Kings PRESENT.
ment was unsatisfactory. Because of
| ii, a numDer have threatened to stop
the paper. For others the column has
been spoiled forever. We don't know
to It is not yet at hand. But we loved
it.
At any rate, we were very nearly
right. the authors name is Harry
Hervey; the title of his book is cara
vans by Night" Except for the cor
rection as TO name and title, we are
disposed to let the paragraph ride as
originally written. We still claim
that an unknown lad. of twenty-one
who can get his book printed by
leader among conservative publishing
houses has something.
what has happened to the Repub-
what will happen to any party that
wins an election on mendacity and
false pretenses. A party that promises
everything must redeem something"
We were an interested spectator of
the campaign of 1920. We don't re-
call that the Republicans promised
anything. 1t wasn't necessary TO do
SO. The prospect OF retiring Mr.. Will
son to private life and transferring the
business of government to a new cor
poration was sufficient to inspire in
the people vast and magnificent en-
thusiasm-
Two perils~ beset the Republican
Party in its current manifestation, and
they are inextricably linked for evil.
One is its abdominal inadequacy. An
other is that a lot of quasi-members
who are not and never have been in
good standing are trying to transact
business in its name.
We are a pretty close observer and
an able Judge of the various phases
OF the Iachrymal mood. So far as we
are able to determine, the crying for
Mr.. Wilson is confined to the office of
the World. And that is natural enough.
No newspaper can lose its yellow
Jacket and its peacock feather without
bemoaning its fate.
Far be it from US to envy the New
Altho we almost never avail ousself
OF the privilege, and, in fact, see Inde-
pendence Square only once or twice a
year, we would not exchange our daily
opportunity to look out upon the be-
ginnings of American history for any
New York Job. But no pressman's
strike which permitted us to fritter
away an entire day in idleness ever
happened to US.
Possibly the New York columnists
availed themselves of the opportunity
to put two or three days work in the
bank. That's what columnists are al
ways threatening to do. We remem-
ber coming back once from the west
to find, due to the irregular manner
in which Democratic mail service
had functioned, three full columns on
the hook. We were firmly resolved
to maintain that reserve; we never had
a reserve account and honed for the
experience. But what we actually did
was to loaf the succeeding three days.
Meanwhile the newly welded cou-
pie can take it from us that the in
cident of the black cat walking under
the gates of Buckingham Palace is not
one to be regarded lightly. Just out
of Tuscola one day last fall black
cat crossed the road. Five minutes
later we deftly removed q wheel from
the motorcar of perfect lady to
whom we had never been formally in
Jacksonville another black cat crossed
the road. In ten minutes 1t was rain
ing and it kept it up for three days
and nights. A few hundred yards to
the eastward of the corporate limits
of Camp Point still another black cat
came into view. And just beyond the
western boundary of the village Ade-
Iaide caressed a truck with the nose
of the Blue Swallow and cracked a
radiator.
We are not superstitious, or any
thing like that, but we believe the evil
dence of our own eyes.
An editorial colleague observes that
Mary Pickford makes almost as much
money as a newspaper paragrapher.
The observation is misleading. If Miss
Pickford gets the $4,000 a week with
which she is credited, she makes more
money than newspaper paragrapher.
We don't know a man In the bust
ness who gets more than $4,000 a
week.
Il