The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1930-03-18
Shallow Youth ShalloWlv Judged

AS everybody knows, the spirit Of jazz in all things is
the widespread psychological phenomenon of the day
among the younger generation. To some extent it is
harmful, but to q greater extent it is simply folly in a
new form, differing from the callowness of preceding
generations.
1t may be that, as so often is the case, it is simply the
pendulum swinging to the opposite extreme of the stu
pidities of, let us say, Victorianism, and that in due time
the return swing will balance at the median point OF a
mentally and morally saner code of conduct and of
ethics.
The flippancies of the times are often magnified by
rhetorical appraiselnents that sound smart but, in them
selves, are more flippant than the follies sought to with
er with phrased scorrl.
According to a Philadelphia rector, for instance, the
creed of American youth is "a leer, a jeer and a jug of
GIN He celebrates:
1.-The advance of atheism among us is appalling. 1t
has become the fad and the fashion to deny God. Most
of our younger intelligentsia are ~flippantly atheistic; our
books and magazines are full of it.
They have no gospel but a leer, a jeer and a jug of
gin"
All of this is rather caustic. The only thing that keeps
us from getting pretty discouraged about it all is the
suspicion that the reverend gentleman is talking through
his hat.
There is, too, the thought that he doesn't know muci,
about his subject; for it is quite certain that no young
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who talks that way.
However, there is no sense in simply dismissing him
as a man with a crouch. His lament is not especially
new. For a good many years we have been hearing out
cries about the younger generation. Perhaps now would
be a good time to sit down and examine these complaints
a bit.
One thing ought to be self-evident. The younger gen.
Grafton is what we have made it. If it has faults, those
faults are merely the reflection of our own.
1Nooco ,Lo omo oorri,,r ~, <Io~o,~l, @1o;u
teens into their twenties right now are not as dense as
we might suppose. You may rest assured that they are
constantly scrutinizing us, their elders, with rather
shrewd young eyes. If they are trying to discover new
modes OF thought and conduct, it is because they have
decided that cur modes won't quite do.
Are they entirely unjustified in such a belief? Is the
world today in such a perfect condition that intelligent
youngsters about to enter it can see no room for i'm
provement? A cataclysnic, idiotic world war is hardly
a decade behind us, and there is no sign that another
Will not follow it presently. If it does, these irreverent
youths of ours will march out-at our bidding-to get
themselves killed, just as the flippant youngsters of 1917
did; and the youngsters know it.
And that isn't all. If the youngsters jeer-who taught
them to, if not their elders? If they occasionally take
a swig of gin-well, who supports the corner bootleggc1,
if not their elders?
WaIing about the fonies of our young people is poor
business. In critcizing them we really criticize cur
SelFes Ill d eltdI HaHy ways we nave maze a mess OF
things; why not admit it, instead of pretending tina.
some unaccountable spirit of madness has descended on
youth and turned it into wrong paths?
And meanwhile, bear this in mind; a phrase that rolls
off the tongue as smoothly as this "leer, jeer and a jug
of GIN is just a little bit too pat to have any shadow
of a meaning.
Worst second-story men are those who tell the same
story twice.
Trying to get even usually makes a man look odd.