Evening star., 1938-01-09
By NC. X.
r JANUARY sCRIBNER's carries a


~ becomes of men who have been
Rhodes Scholars? The reviewer has
to confess with shame that, until she
saw the title Of this piece, she never
gave the matter a thought. Rhodes
Scholars may have been representing
he- in Congress for all these years.
or, again, they may have been check
ing her tires. She just never thought
about it. Well, did you?
1t seems to be Mr. Milton Mackaye
who has first given the question seri-
GUS consideration. And Mr.. Mackaye
has gone about his researches in an
admirably earnest manner. He has
Compiled Statistics and he has Sent
Out Questionnaires Or maybe it was
the other way around. Maybe he
Sent Out Questionnaires and then
| Compiled Statistics. Be that as it
may, he approached the subject in
proper spirit Of mathematical exact
ness and observation-disclosures
swer.
And so he is now able to report to
the waiting public that past Rhodes
Scholars are doing pretty we'll, thank
you. They are not leading the world,
to be sure, and it was to provide the
poor old world with leaders that Cecil
| Rhodes bequeathed the scholarship
| fund, but still, all in all, says Mr..
Mackaye. they "have done reasonably
we'll for themselves. Few of them are
rich and few of them are interna-
tionally famous. but they probably
| have given better accounting of their
talent than an equal number of men
chosen at random from the alumni
lists of Harvard or Yale They pay
their bills, they have substantial repu-
tations in their home cities and more
than hundred of them are repre-
sented in Who's Who"
Well, do you pay your bills? And
| how is your reputation among your
fellow townsmen? Or are you just
Yale man? The reviewer cannot see
that Mr.. Mackaye is making much of
a case for the one-time picked men
Of our country. AS a matter of fact
she knows a night watchman who
pays his bills and is liked by all his
neighbors and simply wouldn't be in
Who's Who if he could. And he quit
school after the fifth grade SO some
way or other Mr.. Mackayes Statistics
doesn't seem quite to stack up.
Indeed. the whole picture of the
Rhodes enterprise. as he presents it,
seems to be one of misunderstanding
He says that Rhodes, in leaving the
money, decreed that there should be
two scholars chosen from every
American State, but was under the i'm
preston when he did so that the quon-
dam British colonies were still num-
bered l3, for, as his biographers put it.,
he was "ill-informed" about the United
States. That seems somehow an in
stance Of understatement.
Also the article says that, in defin-
ing the qualities which his scholars
were to demonstrate. he named "u)
literary and scholastic attainments,
t2) fondness Of and success in, manly
sports, 90 qualities Of manhood, truth,
courage. etc. lone likes that "etc")
90 exhibition during school days of
moral force Of character and of In
stincts to lead"
But having eloquently listed the at
tributes of future greatness thus in his
will, he privately described what he
was looking for to W. T. Stead as
"smugness. brutality. unctuous recti-
tude and tact!' The Empire Builder
would seem to have been either some
what at sea or badly discouraged at the
moment, and neither state of mind is
exactly right for founding a porten-
tous new undertaking.
Anyway, he did not succeed What
he wanted, says Mr.. Mackaye, was to
supply to a group of picked men a
training which would insure the Brit
ish Empire with political leaders. And
today. after more than 80 years. the
great ma jority of Rhodes Scholars are
teachers and no more than 621 per
cent are in the service of their gov.
ernment. And the reason they have
turned so commonly to academic pur.
suits, says Mr.. Mackaye, is that wher
they had finished their education the,
were unable to do anything else! One
is forced to conclude that there was 8
miscarriage somewhere-and that in
Compiling his Statistic Mr.. Mackaye
uncovered some dry humor. the impli-
cation of which he has accidentally
overlooked
IN THE December number of The
Commonwealth, publication OF
the Virginia State Chamber of Com
merce, there is an article on Smith
field ham, The author is Elizabeth
Hawes Ryland
What asks Mrs. Ryland, CON
stitutes a genuine Smithfield ham,
And then she goes through number
of theories. as. for example, the idea
that the hogs whose hindquarters
eventually become the famous dish
must be lineal descendants of an
cestors who roamed the Virginia
woods in pre-discovery days. These,
and all other fanciful theories, she
says, are untrue.
AFTER a test case in one of our
courts" she states, the Virginia
Legislature has settled the question by
law which defines Smithfield hams
as those cut from the hindquarters
of hogs raised in the peanut belt of
Virginia or North Carolina and
packed in the town of Smithfield.'
And So" she concludes. although
your old Virginia ham may be as
good as the real Smithfield prod
uct. you may land in Jail If you ad-
vertise 1t under that label"
She tells some interesting stories
about the fame of the Smithfield ham
abroad.
THE records of the old Todd Co.
at Smithfleld," she says, SHOW orders
for hams sent direct to Windsor Cas-
tie for the use Of Queen Victoria in
the early years Of her reign. In fact,
the original bill of lading for the
first shipment Of hams to England,
dated ITO, is said to be in the pos
session of one of the present packing