The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-05-01
ON SECOND THOUGHT
BY JAY e. HOUSE
FEom Philadeiphia Public Ledser.)

- =
Two customers responded to our
challenge to tell the world why Presi--
dent Harding should have sent a rep
resentative to the conference at Genoa
One of them says the reasons are OBJ
vious The other thinks we should
have representative there because
America has been, for more than a
year, without an ideal.
We don't think, the reasons are OBJ.
vious. If they were, we should be
one of the best little detectors of the
obvious in the world.
We do think this country needs an
ideal, but we doubt that it is necessary
to travel to Genoa to express it. The
honesty, industry, thrift, decency and
virtue. OF course, we cannot hope
more than approximately to achieve
it, But, if we are going to uplift the
world, that's the place to begin.
We trust Haywood Brouf will not
object if the column declares itself
inf on the row he is having with
Michael Gold, of the Liberator. Get
you a job on the section gang for six
months" writes Gold to Broun.
Tramp ties and lay rails under the
man-slaying sum- have a big foreman
hound YOU with his big voice. Sleep
in a lousy bunk house, get lonely and
sore and then beaten up when you
strike for a raise
We asked for chips in the argument
because we once had precisely such a
job. The honorarium was $1-25 a
day. We tramped ties and laid rails
a lousy bunk house. But we did not
get lonely, because we had the priv
lege daily to associate with hundreds
of human beings, such as they were
We were not sore, because there was
nothing to be sore about; the chuck
was good and the wage the current
one. We actually saved money that
summer and showed up in the old
home town that fall sartorial dream,
with a little change in every pocket.
We had too much sense to go on
strike: but nobody would have beaten
us up had we done so.
The men with whom we worked
were not unhappy or dissatified. They
had all they'd ever had, or expected
to have. They were comfortably
clothed, warm and dry at night, and
their stomachs were full. Their funds
were ample for the beer, pitch" and
other diversions of their kind. Such
was the paucity of their mental re-
sources that more entertainment or
greater degree of luxury would have
been an e1nDarrdSSTnenL TO them. Be
cause of this paucity of resource the
ten hours of labor which they daily
performed sat like a benedictiOn upon
them. Otherwise they would not haVeI
known what to do with the leisure at
their Command. Unless, later on,
some radical thinker came along and
told them about 1t, they never knew
their lot was deplorable one. Even
then they probably .grasped the idea
so in1perfectIy that all it did was make
inepndiaries of them
The man who has the impulse and
the capacity to get out of the ruck lifts
himself by his own bootstraps. All
thinkers and uplifters can
do for the others is to make BUNS
of sthem. To us, nothing is more
amusing than the play or the preach
ment' of the soft-handed thinker who
sets out to express the reactions of the
lower classes,
OF course. this Broun-Gold contro-
versy is out of our latitude. In dis
cussing it we may have violated the |
ethics OF column conducting. But we
never can resist the temptation to sit |
in if there is chance to trim an
amateur,
A Lyric of the Yesteryear.
Sir-Will you print the words of |
THAT WATERMELON SmiliTf on de
Vine? 1 heard it last by a peer of
O1alect- singers Cofneld a |
Connors, of Pittsburgh. The lady is |
not in the heyday of youth, but I'll !
enter her against yo'tr best Gridiron |
singer of the song, with money on the |
lady. A. NJ. J.
The verses long since slipped the |
leashes of memory. The chorus runs |
som ething like this; |
'Oh, the ham bone it am sweet;
The bacon it good;
The 'possum it am very, very fine,
But gimme, yes, GIMME
Oh, how / wish YOU would
That Watermilyon smiIin' de vine " |
Neither the words, nor the music of
That Watermelon Smilin' on de
Wire" is anything to write home about. |
There isn't a barber-shop chord in it. /
Its value lies in the fact that it starts
everybody singing and keeps them go
ing. until the party breaks up.