Evening star., 1928-12-22

who invented airplanes, has gone back
to Dayton without word about Sent-'
ing plane for Santa. Paul TarSus is
not the only Paul who is running vet.
The joke is on me, for the librarian
at the Library of Congress almost re-
fused to let me have the armload of
books I needed telling about alleged
myths ct al. A preacher friend roasted
me for mot wanting to let the kids.
have their fairies and Santa" And q
journalist, who is an agnostic or some.
thing Ingersollian and bad, warned me
that The Evening Star is too well
edited to ever let libel on Santa Claus
get into print. Everybody began to yell
at once like the mob in Ehpesus,
Great is Santa of the Arctic and
Washington" until my ears burned
and roared.
So that't that! "Rah for Santal" of
coursel
The trouble with me was that when
was wee kid I woke one night just
as Santa was filling my sock, and he
looked so like my own daddy that j
couldn't sleep after he jumped up the
fireplace until had felt the sock and
seen that it was really and truly filled.
chock-full-mostly nuts. 1t was "a
nawful shock" I never got over It.
1t was a shell game; that must have
been the first shell shock on record.
Now this job of looking up proofs
about Diana and Santa got me into
deep water for 1 had to read nearly a
thousand or a billion books filled with
long. hard words. Some people who are
not newspaper men, nor even Journal
lists, imagine that the writer of Back
ground of Events" knows a lot, but he
just digs it out of the billions of books
OF the Library of Congress, or asks a
Congressman to explain to him, so he
can palm it off onto the readers. 1t is
not what one knows that counts, 1t is
what one knows where to find out
about, that makes the three classes
worth while-the cubs, the journalists
and the editors. So here is something
that I've found out about ghosts and
witches, which will thrill boys and
girls.
Diana was no ghost; Santa is not q
spook.
Even when I found how like INV
own daddy was Santa Claus. never
in all my boyhood did get a glimpse
of the Bad Man" who lived down IN
the ground, In place I must never
speak about. But I was careful not
to dig too deep, for fear of bringing
the bad Man" to the surface, before
l could run. Since have been "a
grown-up, I've seen him toe-..and COM
fess that "he looks like the devil!"
*** ** -. =.
1t used to be more common than
lately to run across people who had
dealings with him. They called such
people witches" and wizards" and iii
New England there were laws for.
bidding witches to play the devil with
their enemies. :
Even before the last presidential
campaign of fantastic intolerance
three centuries ago-there were laws
baniShing or hanging Quakers in Bos-
ton, for often Quakers were witches.
Now our own laws actually increase the
penalty to slow torture in the White
House r.
One Quaker, Mary Brewster, appeared
in Puritan church one Sabbath, in a,
long robe of ackcloth-burlap bag
Stuf-and with hair disheveled and
with bare feet, and with black paint
over her face. and she screamed that
she was sign of the black pox which
was going to get everybody for their
badness. The deputy failed to recog-
nize her, for he said she looked so like
the devil. How did he know that. II he
had never seen the devil? Doesn't that
prove that there was Bad Man?
x y *
Another Quaker, Thomas Newhouse,
once stalked into Puritan church, car.
rying two bottles. (Wonder that he was
not arrested for illegal possession ana
transportation When he got right in
the middle of the church he smashed
the bottles together so that they broke,
and then he shouted, THUS will the
Lord break you to pieces!" Another
day. Lydia Wardell Quakeress, most
demure and chaSte, walked into Puri-
tan church without a shred of clothes
on, as sign of the spiritual nakednesS
of the Puritans. What heroineS
QuakereSses were!
X X X X
All over Europe and in England as
well as in America, the laws used to.
hang witches. or roast them at the
stake. In England alone they burned
$4,000 witches. And now we know
that not one of the witches. either in
Europe or America, was guilty, for
there are no witches and never have
been. Diana is no witch: Santa Is no
wizard. Maybe that is what that New
I OIh DlS gil Was really GIllIlk1Ilg dDOuG
when she got Santa Claus mixed up
with the fakes.
Folks ought to be very careful never
to tell kids anything that is not truly
true, for IL a kid finds out that his
own parents told stories to him, he will
not know whom or what to believe.
A truthful child is the noblest work
of God, and he has to drink in truth
with his mothers milk.
Copyright. 1928 by Paul v. Collins)