Q. Does not this conclusion involve a return to the assumption that race-prejudice is inevitable wherever race-differences exist; and has this not been emphatically denied?
A. On the contrary, the implication is that race-prejudice is inevitable where race-prejudice exists. The conclusion in regard to the United States is based on the single assumption that the non-racial conditions under which race-prejudice has arisen will remain practically unchanged.
Q. Is it then conceivable that a complete alteration of non-racial conditions—as, for instance, an economic revolution which would change the whole meaning of the word “competition”—might entirely revise the terms of the problem?
A. It is barely conceivable—but this paper is not an accepted channel for divine revelation.
Geroid Tanquary Robinson
ADVERTISING
Do I understand you to say that you do not believe in advertising? Indeed! Soon you will be telling me that you do not believe in God. Though, to be sure, in so doing you would be committing less of a crime against the tenets of modern American civilization than in doubting the existence of a power so great that overnight it can raise up in our midst gods, kings, and other potentates, creating a world which for splendour and opulence far surpasses our own poor mortal sphere—a world in which every prospect pleases and only the reluctant spender is vile.
True, we can only catch a fleeting glimpse of its many marvels. True, we have scarcely time to admire a millionth part of the joys and magnificence of one before a new and greatly improved universe floats across the horizon, and, from every corner news-stand, smilingly bids us enter its portals. True, I repeat, our inability to grasp or appreciate the full wonder of these constantly arriving creations, yet even the narrow limitations of our savage and untutored minds can hardly prevent us from acclaiming a miracle we fail to understand.
If it were only given me to live the life led by any one of the fortunate creatures that dwell in these advertising worlds, I should gladly renounce my home, my wife, and my evil ways and become the super-snob of a mock creation. All day long should I stand smartly clad in a perfectly fitting union-suit just for the sport of keeping my obsequious butler waiting painfully for me with my lounging-gown over his exhausted arm. On other days I should be found sitting in mute adoration before a bulging bowl of breakfast food, and, if any one should chance to be listening at the keyhole, they might even catch me in the act of repeating reverently and with an avid smile on my lips, “I can never stir from the table until I have completely crammed myself with Red-Blooded American Shucks,” adding in a mysterious whisper, “To be had at all good grocers.”
There would be other days of course, days when I should ride in a motor of unrivalled power with companions of unrivalled beauty, across canyons of unrivalled depth and mountains of unrivalled height. Then would follow still other days, the most perfect days of all, days when the snow-sheathed earth cracks in the clutches of an appalling winter and only the lower classes stir abroad. This would be the time that I should select for removing the lounging gown from my butler’s arm and bask in the glowing warmth of my perfect heater, with my chair placed in such a position as to enable me to observe the miserable plight of my neighbours across the way as they strive pitifully to keep life in their bodies over the dying embers of an anæmic fire. The sight of the sobbing baby and haggard mother would only serve to intensify my satisfaction in having been so fortunate and far-sighted as to have possessed myself of a Kill Kold Liquid Heat Projector—That Keeps the Family Snug.