Also is raised the British voice of H. M. TOMLINSON, singed with satire.
He writes as from a palely pure tomorrow when mankind shall have reached
such a state of complete uniformity of soul, mind and body, that "only a
particular inquiry will determine a man from a woman, though it may
fail to determine a fool from a man." Tomlinson's imagined nation of the
future is "as loyal and homogeneous, as contented, as stable, as a reef
of actinozoal plasm." And over each hearth hangs the sacred Symbol--a
portrait of a sheep.
Next is the usually jovial face of CHARLES HANSON TOWNE (that face which
has launched a thousand quips) now all stern in his unbattled struggle
with Prohibition, dourly surveying this "land of the spree and home of
the grave."... "My children," says Towne, "as they sip their light wine
and beer..." He is, at least, an optimist! But then, we are reminded he
is also a bachelor.
In his own American language JOHN WEAVER pictures the feelings of an
old-time saloon habitué when his former friend the barkeep, now rich
from bootlegging, with a home "on the Drive" and all that, declares
his socially-climbing daughter quite too good for this particular "Old
Soak's" son. Weaver's retrospect of "Bill's Place" will bring damp eyes
to the unregenerate:
"So neat! And over at the free-lunch counter,
Charlie the coon with a apron white like chalk,
Dishin' out hot-dogs, and them Boston Beans,
And Sad'dy night a great big hot roast ham,
Or roast beef simply yellin' to be et,
And washed down with a seidel of Old Schlitz!"
"The Puritans disliked the theatre because it was jolly. It was a place
where people went in deliberate quest of enjoyment." So says ALEXANDER
WOOLLCOTT, who emerges as a sort of economic champion of stage morality,
though no friend at all of censorship. Despite the _mot_ "nothing risqué
nothing gained," Woollcott emphatically declares the bed-ridden play is
not, as a general thing, successful. "A blush is not, of course, a bad
sign in the box-office," says he, developing his theme, "but the chuckle
of recognition is better. So is the glow of sentiment, so is the tear
of sympathy. The smutty and the scandalous are less valuable than homely
humor, melodramatic excitement or pretty sentiment."
And last in this variegated and alphabeted company the anonymous
AUTHOR OF "THE MIRRORS OF WASHINGTON" who views the applications of
nonsenseorship from the standpoint of national politics.
G. P. P.
CONTENTS
We Have With Us Today. G. P. P.
Evolution-Another of Those Outlines. GEORGE S. CHAPPELL
Nonsenseorship. HEYWOOD BROUN
Literature and the Bastinado. BEN HECHT
The Woman's Place. RUTH HALE
Owed to Volstead. WALLACE IRWIN
The Censorship of Thought. ROBERT KEABLE
The Uninhibited Flapper. HELEN BULLITT LOWRY
The Wowzer in the South Seas. FREDERICK O'BRIEN
Reformers: A Hymn of Hate. DOROTHY PARKER
Prohibition. FRANK SWINNERTON
A Guess at Unwritten History. H. M. TOMLINSON
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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