The Wilmington morning star., 1943-10-27
By WEsTBROOK PEGLER

NEW YORK.-In my daily reading of the
comlc-strip detectives and my occasional
quarter-hours with the spies and counter-spies
blance to the verboten literature of my youth
Nick Carter, the King Brady's, old and young
and old slueth live again under other names
and their resurrection is pulling thing be-
cause 30-odd years ago when their adventures
were appearing weekly in the nickel editions
and monthly in the 15-cent sizes which gave
you more Wordage and at least three desper-
ate predicaments instead of one, this was
strictly juvenile entertainment, scored by the
elders and by most of them formally forbidden
to the young Parents seized these works
when hey could find them and put them in
the stove, teachers confiscated them on sight
and boys were popularity supposed to sneak
away to the barn to keep up in their reading
although that was just way of putting it.
Girls, as far as I know, took no interest in
such tales.
The parents theory was that these stories
would put criminal ideas into the heads of
their young but that could have been just a
superstition arising from ignorance for in
justice to the memory of those fine, fearless
men who bravely strobe the rough pages of
such prints, wish to say that they were i'm
placable foes of the evil-doers who called
them into being. Many a time, l, personally,
read where Nick Carter called some scoundrel
a dirty rat or skunk and all such as that,
right to his face, and they were all incorrupta-
BILE and never failed to get their man. Long
before j. Edgar Hoover implored our press
to deglamorize the criminal ana to heroic
the agents OF the law these authors of my
youth were depicting the robber and kidnapper
as fiends in human form and the detectives
as the sum of all the virtues. I believe young
King Brady didn't even smoke cigarets, an
example which, unfortunately, was wasted on
many young members of his public, already
experimenting with corn silk and lilly stems.
The revivals, or reincarnations, of today
are not addressed to adolescents but to the
adult public and of both sexes, moreover,
and l am surprised and feel a warm sense
OF vindication in my own early taste, to OBJ
serve that the grown-up people of today are
eating it up. I might say too, that If I remen-
Der correctly, our stories were better, for
l do not recall any loose ends or outrageous
impositions on probability or the readers Gre
dullty, whereas nowadays in some of the ad-
venture comics and radio dramas there are
usually details which are not solved salts
factorlly Sometimes the author just makes
lot of noise and confusion to cover up flaws
in his story and if you are an old dime-novel
reader that is where your early training
comes in handy. They can't fool you
I know girl who writes occasional INSTALL
ments of radio serial who shows shocking
cynicism in this respect. She is not really
a professional writer but just sits at home,
listens to couple of these dramas of an
| evening and when the mood is right, bats
out an episode as I believe they are called
She says the whole thing is trick. You get
heroic young man or woman or pair of
lovers into terrible jam and in the last
minute or two, after the plug for the handover
cure, of the soap or the soup, you bust the
public over the head with a surprise and then
make your escape under cover OF loud music
from the band and an almost hysterical spiel
from the pitch-man, telling you to be sure
to listen tomorrow night at the same time.
She says they pay hundred or hundred
and a quarter and then your reflections are
not hard to take because it is just spare-tme
work anyway.
1 guess this revival shows that our parents
weren't so smart after all and | hope the
satisfaction will assuage, after all these years
the pangs of any whaling in the woodshed
as punishment for illicit reading. MOT tnat
ever knew of an authenticated case OF such
whaling. It was just popular myth OF the
day.
| Air power will win the war TO- US ever,
though it is still being used fufnollIsly. ANY ~
air power will also condition the peace. ~
is emerging as the decisive lnterlatlol.
tor Just as sea power was in tne n'ii'ieoia'e
past.-Alcxander P. de Seversky'