“THE WORLD TOMORROW,” AFTER THE MANNER OF GREAT JOURNALISTS.
“THE WORLD TOMORROW,” AFTER THE MANNER OF GREAT JOURNALISTS.[B]
Now for the last few months I have been writing and I have become ambitious and want to do “Bigger and Better things.” I realize that my writings up to now have only appealed to the Morons. (That’s not Mormon misspelled. It’s Morons, just as it’s spelled.) So I have been a close Student and admirer of some of our great editorial writers and I have tried to study their style and, beginning with this article, I am changing my entire method of Literature and I hereby bid Adieu to my Half-Wit Audience. (As a writer’s Writings never appeal to a higher grade of intelligence than the Writer himself.) So, from now on, I am going to give these learned and heavy thinkers a run for their Laurels. I am out to make the front Page. My Column will be called The World Tomorrow, not only commenting on the news of Today but predicting what the morrow will bring forth.
A Race Horse, In Memorandum, beats the great Zev, the International Favorite and My Own thrown in for good measure. That news will perhaps interest 40 million Human Beings, and 2,000 Bookmakers, while the news of the unearthing of a Prehistoric Skull at Santa Barbara, California, linking us up with the Neanderthal Age will only be appreciated by a small Majority of us thinking People. Some anthropologists, however, consider the extinct Neanderthal Man as a separate Species (Homo Neanderthalenis) intermediate between the Java Man (or Pithecanthropus). According to Linneaus, Humanity comprises four races: the Whites, having a light colored skin, belonging to the Caucasian race; the Blacks, the completest possible negation of White; the Republicans, form of genus Homo ape in his earliest Prehistoric State; and, last of the four Races the Democrat. The Democrat doubtless originated in the eastern Hemisphere. The main structural characters distinguishing him are his gait, the modification of the feet for walking instead of prehension, and the great Toe being non-opposable, and, most of all, the enormous development of the brain, and smooth rounded Skull.
But what cares the man of today for the Neanderthal Age! He is of the Speculative Age. If he can get 10 Dollars down on the Nose of a winner at about 15 to one, he don’t care if we descend from Goat or Ape.
As Demosthenes, the Great William Jennings Bryan of his time, so aptly put it when he casually met Confucius, the originator of Mah-Jong on Epsom Downs: “Good Afternoon, countryman, art thee risking a few Shekels on thy favorite Crow Bait in this Race?” And Confucius pulled the following Nifty which has been handed down through the Ages, and made him the Philosopher or Shanghai:
“No, Demosthenes, Betting is a form of unintelligence. So long as we have betting, we will know we have the ignorant with us.”
That little remark of Confucius was well said, and the fact that we had 40 million interested in the Race, and only a handful interested in the Neanderthal Man, proves we have a long way to go yet until Civilization is thoroughly reached.
The Crown Prince of Germany is to be allowed to return, proving that War don’t pay. You only have to go back into History a short way to the Trojan Wars. What happened to Priam the King of Troy when Prince Paris his Heir and Son was born? Eros, Goddess of Discord, threw out a Golden Apple to the most beautiful, and Juno, Minerva and Venus all claimed it. Paris was to decide. He gave the Apple to Venus. Helen of Troy, the most beautiful Woman in Sparta, got jealous of Paris and that culminated in the War of Troy. Troy was besieged for 9 years. This Trojan War alone should prove to the greedy Interests that War don’t pay. And Sons born of Kings don’t pay. A law should be passed that all offspring of Royal Birth should be of the feminine Gender.
An American army airman flies at the rate of 258 miles an hour. What does this astounding feat mean to the World? What did Napoleon say at Austerlitz in 1805, just after the battle of Ulm, and after the Old Corsican had rushed his troops from Cologne? He said, “An army travels on its Stomach.”
Look at the progress that has been made in the mode of Transportation from the Napoleon days to this! I don’t know exactly how far a man could travel in a day on his Stomach. If he had a good Stomach and was an Apt Traveler he might make pretty good headway. There was no way in reckoning speed in those days as there was no way of fixing a speedometer on a Soldier’s Stomach, but if you take a Soldier going away from the Enemy, and if his Stomach held out, he certainly ought to have had the abdominal record of his time.
But has Congress heeded what the Airship is doing? No, they go ahead building Battleships which will be as useless as a shipping board. Transportation advances but our Lawmakers are still traveling on their Stomach.
Lloyd George goes home to England after inviting us to join in the Salvation of Europe. You have only to turn to Hugo’s Oration on Voltaire to find out if we should meddle in the selfish affairs of European Turmoil. Hugo said: “Before going further, let us come to an understanding, Gentlemen, upon the word Abyss. There are good abysses: such are the abysses in which evil is engulfed. Rabelais warned royalty in Gargantua. Moliere warned the people at Tartuffe.” That proves right there to any thinking person that we should not meddle in the affairs of these envious Nations. The more Trouble you get them out of, the more they get into. No, the time has come when this Country has got to bank up our own fires for a cold morning. Just remember Cicero’s words speaking at Glasgow in regard to America’s participation in the World’s War: “La premiere femme du monde la tete montee en se couchant.” Those who want to adjust Europe’s Carburetor should remember Horace Greeley’s immortal Gag: “Go west, young man, Not east.”
A Lady in Chicago is arrested for killing a casual acquaintance. That’s news. If she had killed her Husband or Lover that would be commonplace. But friends are seldom killed. What does the 8th chapter, second verse, of the first Book of Matthew teach us? That verse should be enough to teach us that friendship should be trusted. We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.
Judge Gary, the head of the great Steel Corporation, eats only the white of a soft boiled egg for breakfast. Which should be a lesson to some of you who think you have to eat the whole egg to subsist. We should look and learn from our Men who have Done Things. Read Einstein’s Theory on what constitutes over-gorging. He says: “Light rays, if obstructed, have an observed constant velocity irrespective of the relative velocity between the observer.” That should show even the ignorant when they have enough.
A little Girl in Brooklyn started to school and forgot her books and had to go home for them. There you have a bit of news that is valuable. We are at that age when we are rushing headlong and paying no attention to small details. It’s only the big things of life that interest us. For instance, the little Girl was only interested in getting to the School, not in what she had when she got there. If we only stopped to realize that it is really after all the little things that count, why, we would be a wiser and more contented race. People that can’t remember should remember what Socrates said to Plato on the subject of forgetfulness. He said: “Where then I wonder shall we find Justice and Injustice in it? With which have we contemplated? Has it simultaneously made its entrance?”
A Professor of Columbia University won a prize by writing a Book in 15 hours. That’s a good thing. The quicker the Authors write them the quicker they can get to some useful work. But if Pascal were on earth today and heard of that feat he would say: “That’s fine, Professor, but what did you do with the other 10 Hours?”
It takes two and a half Tons of Marks to buy a Stein of Beer in Berlin. Before the War you could have bought two and a half Tons of Beer for a Mark. What does Wall Street think of that? It shows you that selfish Interests can’t rule the People, when they make up their mind to rebel.
P.S. You see I have an Encyclopedia, too.