Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-12-08

lar to chess was played in Egypt 5000 years
ago. But it is known that chess was played in
India before the days of Buddha, 400 BE-
The game spread from India to Persia Arabia
and other Moslem countries and was introduced
into Europe at the time of the Moorish in
Vasion of Spain From Spain it spread north
ward into France, England, Germany and into
the Scandinavian countries
Although the game spread rapidly it was
at first confined to the upper classes and the
royal courts.
From chess literature which includes more
than 5000 volumes and treatiseS, library more
extensive than that of all other games COM
bined, and from every country in the world
we learn that the game has always been the
most popular of all games among thinkers
Sir Walter Raleigh declared he would like to
die on the day he was unable to play chess.
Goethe referred to it as the "touchStone of
the human brain" Voltaire Ibsen BENJAMIN
Franklin. Bulwer-Lytton and Tennyson we're
all lovers of the game.
One of the loveliest scenes in the great poeu
by Bishop Tegner, "Frithiofssaga," contains
the description of a chess game as does the
famous scene in Goethes drama, "Gotz Won
Berlichingen." Even detective and crime flc-
ton has made use of the royal and ancient
game, as one notes in S. S. Van Dimes THE
Bishop Murder Case" Jacques Futrelle's 1.-THE
Thinking Machine" Raymond Aliens "A Happy
Solution" and Others
Literary chess players include also Robert
Louis Stevenson, who played the game daily
and Cooper, in whose "Deerslayer" we recall
that Natty Bumpo thought the carved chess
men used for barter with the Indians were
idols. Bacon had no use for chess and sar-
caStically declared that it was too wise a
game" a curious remark from the author of
Advancement of Learning" Shakespeare re-
fers to the game only once, and that in THE
Tempest" The chess game i'll Through a
Looking Glass" is, of course, immortal, al
though somewhat difficult to follow. Then
there are the famous lines in the 'Rubaiyat"
of Omar Khayyam:
IT'S all checquered board of nights and days
Where Destiny with man for pieces plays.
A THOUGH chess formerly a royal or
aristocratic game, it has come to be the
most cosmopolitan and most democratic of all
games. Today it is played all over the globe.
from China to Peru and from Iceland to the
South Seas. 1t is played on land. at sea and
in the air, on trains. ships and airplanes, and
even by telephone and cable. cable match
was recently held between Washington and
London. AS one writer expressed it: Chess
Is the relaxation of the business man, the
anodyne of hospitals and the solace of tails"
For the business man, chess affords an in.
tellectual form of relaxation and recreation
refined form of mental gymnastics and
there are some very good players among them
Charles M Schwab and Samuel insult are both
players of chess, as are ex-PreSident Coolidge
and Chief Justice Taft. In England the game
numbers among its devotees the Prince Of
Wales, Balfour, Shaw and Kipling.
Chess is a far superior game to bridge in
some respects, and, contrary to popular belief,
1t has far more followers. One can always
prove his superiority in chess, whereas he cam
not in bridge. The element of chance or luck
does not arise in chess as 1t does in card games
Copyright 1929