The Washington times., 1922-02-11

Two Birthdays-Good
Ones.
Silk Shirt to Breadline.
Who Killed Mr.. Taylor?
Folly In FINLAND.
ARTHUR BRISBANI
Copyright, 1921

to A. G. Henry in 1858: 81
now sink out of view and shall
be forgotten" Most briefly put,
what is the secret of his sue
cess? He knew how to trans
form knowledge into wisdom.
To understand the difference is
the beginning of wisdom.
This day is an important
birthday also. Thomas A. Edi-
son is seventy.five years old
and still working. He is the
most distinguished citizen of
this Republic-and that is some
thing in a nation of 10O,OOO,OOO.
The world knows what he is.
You could see it when Foch
met Edison at Judge Gary's
big dinner. In the parade past
the French marshal everybody
was perfunctorily introduced
and as perfunctorily greeted.
Fifty or a hundred time mil
lionaires, great industrialists,
newspaper owners-most impor-
tant in their own opinion-ali
looked alike and all looked like
nothing to Foch. Edison's name
pronounced in the usual way
made no impression. But Judge
Gary repeated it, with a fine
French accent. as follows:
"Aydeesong, c'est lie grand
Aydeesong, Monsieur lie Mare
chale."
"Ah. c'est lie grand Edisonw
exclaimed the marshal. as excit-
ed as though you said. "This is
Christopher Columbus" This
evening raise your convivial
glass-of water-and drink to
Edison, the American that the
world knows.
In front of St. Marks Church
in New York city there is a
bread line 1900 men long on
the average. That's a bad be-
ginning. Many in that bread
line, toward the end of the
war, were selecting S12 silk
shirts, most fastidiously, and
asking the man in the shoe
shop If he didn't have anything
better than the S18 shoes.
This column, about once in
ten times during the boom,
urged workers to remember
that high pay wouldn't last and
to keep some.
Sooner or later good times
will come back. Then again
this and other columns will
say: "Keep some of it." But
always there will be a rapid
jump from the silk shirt counter
TO the breadline, That Is why
a few Shssc much money and
the great majority have none.
Those that need the lesson
will learn from reports of the
Taylor cinema murder, that it
doesn't pay to have too many
young ladies writing you let
ters, ending with nine small
crosses and one big cross.
Amusing while it lasts, it
doesn't LAST long.
After the bulldog had torn
out the parrots feathers that
bird said: 81 know what's the
matter with me, l talk too
much"
Many men could learn from
details of the Taylor killing
what is the matter with them.
1t is a mystery to delight
detectives.
The killing is done with a
bullet fifteen years old. There
fore the person that killed did
not often use firearms.
Little details that go with the
shooting of elderly men, pink
kimonas, silk night shirts, called
"nighties" by the reporters,
etc, were not missing. They
figured also in the Blwell case.
More interesting than the kill
ing by some drug-crazed woman
or jealous man is the psychology
cal study involved in the dead
mans funeral-a japanese movie
actor standing rigid throughout,
an officer with raised sword
standing by the coffin, the corpse
dressed in a military uniform,
Canadian soldiers as a guard of
honor, Scotch musicians in their
kits.
1t was complete as a movie
murder and a movie funeral.
Foolishness blames the moving
picture industry for the folly of
a few individuals. You see in
film-land what has been seen a
thousand times-sudden wealth
going to the minds Of unbalanced
men and women and driving
them to folly or worse. Great
incomes suddenly pour in upon
those that had nothing. With a
$500,000 income, they try to buy
what they conceive to be 100000
worth Of excitement and pleas
ure. There is not that much of
a legitimate, harmless kind for
sale-especially not for an un-
educated mind. Drink, drugs,
immortality, and finally tragedy
crop up here and there. But to
denounce the moving pictures,
greatest teacher Of men, is as