The Brooklyn Daily Eagle from Brooklyn, New York • Page 69

'Page' Thret Has Making New Year's Resolutions Gone Out of Style? Is Custom Sensible' or Helpful? Persons Known Fame Express Their Opinions of Annual Stock Taking of Personal Habits ,1 Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light; The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. "Ring out the old, ring in the new. Ring, happy bells, across the snow The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true." l'; I JIJM I ft' iir Jfi i.iifftll ft GL.UTtONS Due Rittenhouse By Mignon "If so," asked question number two, "what are sonH which you plan to make this year?" He replied: "I don't." "Do you believe the making of resolutions to be sensible custom?" queried number three. The answer came: "I don't." "Does it help you to accomplish more work in the coming year?" He stated: "It doesn't." Then added: "If a man'l going to lead a decenter life, why should he make any specific resolutions? And why make them on a giver, date? Why not decide privately that generally he'll try to be a better citizen and a better man?" Daniel A. Poling, pastor of the Marble Collegiate Church of New York City, was approached ith the same questions and answered them in this manner: "First, it has been my custom for many years to enter in my diary at the opening of the year a searching paragraph that is both a survey and a forecast.

It is hardly specific enough to be called a resolution, but it is that in spirit. "The answer to the seco.se question is suggested by the first. "I am sure that my custom has been of real help. It is always worth while to 'stop, look tnd listen" before going ahead. It is something of a tragedy when a person does not move forward definitely and with convir-uca." Fannie Hurst, beloved the country over ft ber human stories of everyday people and life, had this to say: "It requires just three hundred and sixty-five resolutions a year and each one of those resolutions just twenty-four hours long to keep me sufficiently steadfast to my ideas and ideals to accomplish anything at all.

"Therefore New Year's Day is just a link in the chain. and determining, a practice, which seems almost fatalistic, sprang out of me popular custom of making New Year's resolutions. Those who desired to team what fortune the new year had in store for them consulted the Bible on New Year's morning. The sacred book was laid upon the table, opened at random, and a casual finger placed upon whatever chapter and veise the book opened to. This chapter was read and it was believed to describe in some way the happiness or misery in store for the persons making the trial during the ensuing yecr.

In all of the countries until quite recently not excepting our own promises of all kinds were made freely and in all seriousness, amid the excitement of music, crowds and popular acclaim. Freak promises, of course, are still made the country over for the fun of it. But promiscuous resolutions making them in public seems to be a thing of the past. Just why is hard to say. Perhaps people have learned through experience how futile and foolish it is to make pledges for a whole year in advance upon the moment's impulse.

We asked five persons who help to mold public opinion whether or not they make New Year's resolutions and if they believe the custom to be a sensible one. None of them make specific resolutions, they told us, although two of them said that they make a general pledge to God that they will try harder during the coming year. Chauncey Depew, that genial and philosophical gentleman of the old school, answered our questions regarding New Year's resorptions in slow and thoughtful manner speaking out of his long experience in the art of reviewing the passing parade of years. "No, I don't think that the making of specific resolutions is a sensible custom as a general rule," he said, sitting back in his swivel chair in the office of the New York Central Railroad. "Most New Year's resolutions are made concerning things which you wouldn't do anyway if you mere in your right mind.

If the resolution is made because the will power is loo weak to support the person in doing right without some help, then I'm afraid the resolution won't be of much help. "There are only two kinds' of resolutions which I would advocate and both are of a general nature. "I think that it would be a wise plan if a man and his wife should make some sort of pledge to each other every year that's a contract and I believe a good thing. And everybody on New Year's Day ought to say that, 'With God's help, I will meet all obligations and perform all the duties of life for the coming year in a way which, so far as I know or can ascertain, He will Irvin S. Cobb, popular writer of humorous stories, was sent a questionnaire with four questions, which he ai.swered briefly and to the point.

The first question put to him was; "Do you make New Year's resolutions?" He answered: "I don't." As a custom, New Year's resolution making charming. THE making of New Year's resolutions formerly was regarded as much a part of the New Year's celebration as the ringing of church bells, the street promenading with trumpet and whistle blowing and the general festivities which marked the ushering out of the old year. All of the ditties made some allusion to the fact that the old year, with its mistakes and lost chances, was about to be over, and the new one, replete with opportunities, about to commence. Wherever mankind was able to reckon time, from Paris to the lands of the Cherokees and of the Zulus, resolutions were made and -erses such as the following extolling the virtues of the coming year were sung. The practice of making pledges upon New Year's eve, it is believed, sprang from a commendable and innocent custom.

In every shrine and temple monarchs of old, their ministers and priests and throngs of others, gathered together at the beginning of the new year to make petitions to a higher being for strength, guidance and blessing in the coming year and to promise obedience on their part. Gradually the people began to make promises to one another. Undoubtedly it was thought that the new year represented an entirely new period of life with which the individual might do as he pleased. What was already passed he put out of his mind, for it was something over which he had no control. But on the coming year he could concentrate.

It was before him, a new, unsoiled page in the book of life. In ancient England it was the custom Hn New Year's to clean out the chimney, so that luck could descend and remain all year round. In China and Japan this custom of making resolutions took a more useful and practical form. It became the universal practice to pay all debts before the old year ushered out. In Paris reason was abandoned.

All day long throngs went up and down tbe streets. The fashionable parts of the city became a forest of carriages and hacks, standing at every door and whirling around in great haste. Over the river students sang or played on their fiddles in the top stories of the high old-fashioned houses of the Latin Quarter. Beggars were at liberty to fleece every good-natured man, woman or child they could. Students, beggars and princes alike, amid such scenes, made resolutions which neither a man nor a god could reasonabiy be expected to keep.

It seems an odd fact that in Scotland, that country of people ho are as a rule extremely self-determined "As a practice, at least fur mere mortal of my kind of clay, it has about the puiling power of a flea." The fifth person to whom our questions were put. C. E. Mitchell, president of the National City Bank of New York City, was emphatic in affirming that the making of specific New Year's resolutions is a waste of time. "I have never made a New Year resolution in my life, as far as I can remember," he told us, "and I da not expect to.

"For me a year is too long a unit; a month is tro long; a week is too long; a day is too long. How handle the problem that comes into my life the next hour will depend not on any resolution, but upon the extent of my past experience, my background of knowledge and understanding, and the degree of alertness of my mind, which to some extent is a reflection of my health and my conscience." Again we celebrate the new year. Little nineteen twenty-six, that innocent-looking child, is upon uj. Naively it is beckoning to us; naively are about re follow. Last year we followed anothor naive-Iookitf child, who turned out to Le not so naive.

And th yea before that. But this on looks even more disannul than the last or than did the one previous to the lau But look out! All years start the same. I'nsoiled by mistakes follies. With trumpet bk) ing anj much cheering..