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.