Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-03-11
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

takes more than that to make 'em
! like it,
They want beef.
|
| There is a tradition around Wash
| ington that q great many Government
| workers eat dinner at o'clock, and
II that is true we want to be one of the
flrst to congratulate them.
| Custom is an absurd thing, at best,
| no matter how necessary or useful it
| may be. The custom of waiting until
| full 6 pm. to eat Inner, or supper, as
one chooses to call It, had its origin in
another day, when there were no movies
and no Amos n Andy.
| The Government clerk who leaves his
office to go home and sit down at once
| to dinner is a helpful, honest type of
citizen, who minds his own business
as long as it hurts no one else-and
does as he pleases-as long as he harms
no one.
| If he wants to dine at 5, or 6, or T. or
at 8. or o'clock, or whenever he wants
| to dine, we assure him that it is all
right with u.s. and with all of us who
believe in the same course of action
| through life.
What lot of things there are which
would forbid us doing what we please !
Yet certainly the average man or
woman of today, in or out of the Gov
eminent service, comes O great deal
nearer doing as he pleases than ever
| before, although in the main the mass
ideas of humanity have grown more
and more harassing.
Even in so delightful q matter as
books the urge Of the day is to keep
up with them" as though they were
race horses galloping down a stretch,
| and we must kick up our heels, too. and
after them as fast as we can go lest
they escape US.
well, that is one way of looking at
books, and at music, and at art in gen.
| eral, but we believe it is a very poor
way to look at them all, and we refused
| to be coerced in that way, and we be-
| lieve the great majority of thinking
men and women refuse, too.
Does 1t not irk you to have some
| friend approach with a determined
| look, and ask If you have read 1.-The
| Great Kidoodle," James Washington
Manners? No, you have not read it.
why, 1t is best selleri Every one is
reading it." The look which accom-
paries these sentences says as plain as
day: you are one of these absurd per-
| sons who insists on reading what he
wants TO read Your silent contempt
| for my plan of keeping up with the
new books irks me nightly, so I am
now and here getting my revenge by
| irsinuating that he or she who does not
| read every single new book which comes
on the market is an ignorant fool"
OF course the person is a liar, for
there were about $4,000 books published
| during 1929, and If he had read "a
| hours a day from the first minute of
January /, 1929, to the present hour he
could by no means have gone through
a tenth of then. No doubt he is a
cousin of the man who turned his radio
set on six months ago and has not
turned it off since, in an effort to see
how long the tubes would last. We
mean the tubes in the set, not those in
| his neighbors' ears, for the latter must
have given out days ago. Now happily
the neighbors are deaf-or insane.
Either way one probably would be bet
| ter of than listening to some one else's
radio for "a hours a day.
| AS one looks at the hundreds of men
and women pouring out OF the DEPART
ment buildings as the sun begins to 60
/ down, he is wondering about all Of
these things, and about many others,
no doubt. Each observer will do his
! own little job of speculation, aided by
! the pictures painted on his mind by the
| faces which fit by him, as their owners
make for home at top speed.
| Going home! No, going home Is not
| lugubrious, as the famous largo move
ment from 1.-THE New World" would
| insinuate. often enough, perhaps as
often as most Of us deserve, it is a
very engaging, interesting, happy and
even thrilling process, whether we begin
| the movement from a Government de-
partment or elsewhere.