Herald and Review from Decatur, Illinois • Page 6

DECATUR HERALD Monday, May 2, 1949, INTERPRETATION Britain Revisited RIGHT AT HIS FINGERTIPS Editorials. British Socialists Love Culture They Promote Theater, Preserve Manors A flier reports seeing; a "flying saucer." Is it that season of the year, already? ton; he is head of the Bank of China, but somehow is able to live in the United States. Reporters also learned that the prominent Soong family --of which Mme. Chiang and Mrs. Kung are members has large financial resources in the United States.

That being the case, and with things going worse and worse for' the Nationalists, it would be no great surprise to hear that Chiang himself had given up the life of a sweeper of his ancestors' tombs for the secluded life of a well-to-do political refugee in the United States. America is lacking in dramatic or If the New York Communist trial brings forth many more Communists who were really F. B. I. spies, there won't, be enough real Communists left in the country to try.

By DOROTHY THOMPSON London (Via Airmail) IMPRESSIVE in British socialism, atd characteristic of the British instinct always to keep the bridges up between the old and new, is the Socialist government's attitude toward cultural life. Here one finds distinguished at playwriting talent; many of London's most successful productions are works of American authors. Yet the whole American theater, except for isolated amateur com panies and summer stock, is confined to a small area of New York City, and is wholly commercial. Headline Russian Attitude Began to Soften in January. About the time of that hard thaw.

tempts to lift and improve the level Britain also is concerned with Working t'Other Side of Street By ROBERT K. KELLEY In The Kansas City Star A ONCE LOYAL army of four and a quarter million readers has dwindled to and these survivors soon are to have their supplies cut off. In the next few weeks the last four pulp magazines and five comic books published by Street Smith will disappear from the drug store counters and newsstands. Where' they will find their high advehture and happy-ending stories when the current press runs are over is something that probably worries many of the 700,000. The Street Smith trend that was climaxed recently by the announcement of the abandonment of its last pulps and comics can be traced to 1938.

It was in that year that Allen L. Grammer, silver-haired former member of the Curtis Publishing staff, took over direction of Street Smith. He decided the pulps, founded in 1855 by Francis S. Street and Francis S. Smith, weren't profitable enough for the energy expended in putting them out.

'Grammer launched the conversion of the pulps to slick-paper publications. He said recently (but not when he first got the idea in 1938) that radio, the 25-cent reprints of expensive books and television had want of patrons. So is now obvious that he used rare judgment in turning his major efforts toward the "slicks," Mademoiselle, Charm and Mademoiselle's Living, all three magazines for women. Wonder, when the new federal legislation on margarine is made law, how many of the restaurants we frequent will suddenly start serving their "butter" in triangular pats? the fate of the great country houses which, by reason of income taxes and death duties, are destined within this generation to pass to the state. These are under consideration of the so-called "National Trust." and preserve the best from the past.

The theater and musical life are flourishing. The National Arts council, formed during the war and continued since, has access to considerable state funds, with which the Labor government reportedly is more generous than its predecessor. The council'sends orchestras and art exhibitions into the provinces, and is empowered to remit entertainment taxes on commercial theatrical productions of high artistic merit that might otherwise be un-ableto open or forced to close. Britain is rich in superb coun try estates manors and castles, dating from the 14th to the 18tft centuries many with remnants of even earlier architecture, surrounded by magnificent parks and world-famous gardens, in themselves representing generations of works of art. Some 700 of these have, been adjudged gems of domestic architecture and art whose owners.

since long before the Labor gov The Impish Etaoin Shrdlu Hiss's Day in Court Barring a last-minute postponement, Alger Hiss is to go on trial in New York today on charges of perjury. The charges grew out of testimony. given by Hiss before a federal grand jury which heard both Hiss and Whittaker Chambers tell their stories of how they knew each other years ago and of how Hiss was or was not a Communist. The fact that Hiss was indicted indicates that a majority of the grand jury a majority vote is all that is necessary for such an indictment believed that Hiss was lying, and presumably that Chambers was not. The trial, about to begin, will decide.

Because the testimony in question was given before a federal grand jury, the offense in question becomes a federal offense, punishable if provided under federal law. And the United States Code provides a penalty for perjury of imprisonment up to five years, or fine up to $2,000, or both. There were other offenses, if any major part of the Hiss-Chambers story is true. Chambers has admitted offenses that amounted to espionage; Hiss has denied any such activity. The penalties under the Espionage Act of 1917 and other pertinent acts are much more severe than the penalties for perjury.

However and it is a big "however" the U. S. Code provides offenses not punishable by death may not be tried more than three years after their, commission. And the Hiss and Chambers ordeal ended in 1937. That is why the perjury trial is being held.

No other charge can bring the matter into court. A decision that Hiss was guilty, in the perjury trial, would do something to resolve the confusion still left in the Hiss-Chambers story; a decision of innocence would leave much unresolved. So, despite the perjury trial, we may never know what the truth was. ernment, have been forced by pro In addition to the West End London theaters currently presenting more productions than Broadway, every provincial city of any size has a repertory theater, in addition to the Old Vic and several others in the London environs. And the government has just voted the council four million dollars for the gressive taxation gradually to de plete them of pictures, tapestries, -He Was Born in 1885 on the Linotype carpets, and furniture, most or which have found their way into before it can be sent into the mold, to be cast.

So the operator feeds private or public American collec tions. In addition to the 700 first- it letters as quickly as he can by Mother's Day Improvemt Father's day is held in many circles to be an inspired idea, a worthy product of the great minds that struggle to bring forth such things. It is the day when fathers all over the country are not only privileged to receive gifts paid for with money which they have previously had the privilege of providing but on which they are also privileged, under a new interpretation of the manners of such things, to show their appreciation for all the things done for them tiy giving gifts to those who have given gifts to them. Heretofore, Mother's day in the United States has not been such a privilege for mothers as Father's day is for fathers. Mother's day, on the contrary, has been an-exclusively unilateral affair, with the unfortunate mothers just having to sit back and let people do things for them without being permitted to reciprocate.

Now, however, comes a new idea that promises to revolutionize Mother's day in this country. It comes from, of all places, Soviet Russia. In Russia, you see, they do not have Mother's day, but they do have instead a special time set aside for observance which they call "Women's day." And Women's day has an advantage over Mother's day which, certainly, the mothers of America will want to adopt and make their own. In Russia, you see, the women, knowing that it is better to give than to receive do not just sit back and let things be done for. them.

In Russia, on Women's day, the Russian mothers are expected to work an extra hour. construction of a great national theater, i This is impressive, positively, and by contrast, when one consid rate examples, there are some 500 more which the government con running his finger down the bank of keys in front of him, expecting to siders worthy to preserve and ers that New York the richest city throw out the faulty line when it in history and the seat of the United Nations, has no great arts theater devoted to producing and keeping alive the greatest dramatic works of our civilization. Certainly this is not because From New York World-Telegram. Etaoin Shrdlu is perhaps the best known comic character in the American press. With all the puck-ishness of Harpo Marx himself, he pops up in the most unexpected places and at the most inopportune times, always to be widely applauded for his incomparable drollery.

So it may be of interest to know what his origin He is popularly believed to be the result of some mechanical error on the part of the. linotype machine. This is thought to slip a cog, or some other dido, and thus bring him into being. This is incorrect. He is the result of an error, not on the part of the machine, but on the part of the operator.

What happens is that the operator makes some kind of slip so that he does not want to complete the line he is working on. But the inner works of the linotype machine are such that a line must have a certain maintain. The personal competition of the National Trust is singularly free from prejudice. Most of the members are, themselves, great estate owners. But since these are the people who know and care most about such properties, they are natural consultants on their disposal.

The probability is there already are precedents, such as Lord Sack-ville's Knole that in return for confiscatory taxation, the owners and their heirs will be permitted to continue in residence as the most appropriate caretakers and curators, keeping public museums and gardens as living properties. has come from the mold, but sometimes forgetting to do so. The keys are arranged in this order: a fi 0 fl 1 1 y- ff So it can easily be seen that when he runs his fingers down the first two rows, etaoin shrdlu stands a good chance of getting into the paper, and that if a few more letters are needed, and the operator starts into the. third bank, etaoin will have a few honorary degrees to his name. Etaoin Shrudlu is 64 years old, having been born in 1885 on the same day as the linotype machine.

It Didn't Get Away Book of the Month Club News. It seems that salmon fishing is very special. You don't "catch" salmon, you "kill" salmon. A certain New Yorker, who owned a section of one of Canada's finest salmon rivers, had quite a time teaching his less sporty guests the right terminology. But he succeeded.

When they left there was some question about train connections, but to ease their host's mind they sent back a telegram: "Killed train." Since his tremendous success in dealing with the Palestine situation, there have been nothing but honeyed words for Dr. Bunche. FOR A TIME during the war ylsars it looked as though the chairman of the Street Smith board might have made an error in turning to the women's field. Circulation of the recently doomed pulps, Story, Western Story, The Shadow and Doc Savage, along with the comic rose beyond the four and one quarter million mark. But more than three and one-half million of that figure had faded away by the first of this year.

No wonder then that the nosedive in readers led Gerald H. Smith, president of the firm, to remark: "They (the pulps and comics) weren't making any money. We just weren't interested in them any longer." He only echoed what the public had been demonstrating in the post-war years. The company's decision to leave forever the pulp field comes at a time when other publishers of similar magazines are confronted with plummeting sales. Several of the large "pulp chains" have been retrench-, ing in recent months to remain economically secure.

Shifting from monthly to bimonthly publication dates has been observed. No widespread firing of personnel is to result from the company's move, Grammer said. Street Smith has been paring down its pulp operations in the last decade. At one time, the company published dozens of pulps, the most famous of which in modern times was Love Story magazine. Love Story last was published in February, 1947.

Detective Story is the oldest of the four magazines abandoned, having made its first appearance in 1915. The scrapped comic books include Buffalo Bill, Picture Stories, Top Secrets, True Sports, Supersnipe and The Shadow (this a picture version). In addition to Mademoiselle, Charm and Modemoiselle's Living, the company will have something left for the men to read in Astounding Science Air Trails Pictorial and Pic Sports Quarterly, the last two of which are printed on slick paper. Discovery of that bearded young m'an of Brooklyn who lived sealed in a hidden room for 10 years has caused revision of the local trademark. Now, it's said, "A bush grows in Brooklyn." amount of letters dropped into it In Des Moines, Iowa, two women won divorces by contending that their husbands' silence constituted cruelty.1 With husbands suing, it wouldn't have been silence that was the cruelty.

Americans Have Lost Faith, They're Scared Look of the Best-Seller Lists and See Their Agony Reflected We've seen photographs of lactress who got a divorce charging that her husband preferred his toy trains to kissing her. Now how about showing us a picture of those toy trains. are looking for escape from a life which, in the midst of automobiles, radios, television sets, and other There is no intention of turning these gems into schools, convalescent homes, or guest houses, which would require adaptations ruinous to their architecture; that fate will be reserved for other great houses designed to be lived in richly, many of them handsome copies or adaptations of more precious originals. There is no spirit of vandalism in the British and no left-wing government is likely ever to treat the grace and beauty of past times as the Russian and Polish Communists treated the manor houses of Western Poland. The latter wreaked their proletarian vengeance, not only upon their ancestral homes, threw priceless furniture into peasant kitchens, hacked up parquets, stripped coverings from furniture, tore out chandeliers, destroyed parks, neglected gardens tended for centuries, and left weed-engulfed ruins dolorously gaping to wind and rain.

"True Love Story," instead of upon the responsibility of that great creative act of marrying, remaining faithful and stable, and bringing up a sound family as a bulwark cf the state. They want somebody to look after them and, instead of makiDg that somebody God and themselves, they- look to the state, a materialist process which is certain suicide 25 Years Ago in The Herald Twenty-five Years Ago Today Castle Williams unit No. 105, American Legion auxiliary, will unveil a bronze tablet inscribed with the names of 99 Macon county men and women who died in service during 1917-18 in Nelson park May 25. By LOUIS BROMFIELD THERE IS something ominous and almost sinister about the list of books marked up on the published best-seller list as the popular choices of American (Titizens. At the moment they include on the non-fiction side "The Seven Storey Mountain," "The Greatest Story Ever Told," "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living," "Peace of Mind," "A Guide to Con material luxuries, is still at times unbearable.

They are trying to escape into a silly, fantastic world which never existed and which no honest man ever would want to exist, in any case. Take a look at the bestseller lists. If you think about them long enough, they'll scare the daylights out of you. Yet maybe by creating faith in self and God they may do some good to the American people. I hope so.

Ifor the charactpr and for any real President Robert I. Hunt and Secretary W. M. Bering of the Decatur Water Supply which built Lake Decatur, are meeting with state officials to determine whether state aid will maintain such roads as the Maff.t cut-off and the Nelson park bridge and the Rea's bridge roads. satisfaction jn living.

Some of them are scared'of the' speed at wbich they live, a speed created by the very mechanical devices like, the telephone, the automobile, and the airplane which they never have learned how to use but which they have permitted to use them by turning them at middle-age into physical wrecks doomed to die long before their time. Easier Than Speaking Henry Wallace's "peace tour" got under way last Thursday night with a meeting in New York City. It was the beginning of a trek around the United States that will eventually visit 15 cities. Henry -Wallace at the first meeting confined himself to greeting four Europeans who will accompany him on the tour. But the striking thing about the meeting was the way In which Wallace did not make a speech.

Wallace's aides passed out to reporters who "were present copies of a prepared speech which the leader of the Progressive party was scheduled to make. But Wallace did not deliver the speech. The main reason for making speeches, like the Wallace one, is to let them loose to the public, planting ideas and making arguments. The meeting at which such speeches are made is not the important thing, because the audience in such a case is relatively small, certainly by comparison with the huge audience that is reached if the contents of such a speech are disseminated to the nation's public by the press and radio. Furthermore, in cases like that of the Wallace "peace tour," the audience is usually already convinced while the big general public is not.

So Mr. Wallace apparently said to himself, why bother to make the speech? Why not just write it all out and give copies of it to the reporters? That procedure would seem to be ideal. It would achieve the purpose of getting the message before the public; the speaker would not have to go to the trouble of reading the speech; and the audience would not have to listen to it. But something went wrong with the planning in the Wallace case. For the reporters carefully reported what happened and what was said at the meeting.

But what Henry Wallace did not say, the reporters did not report. BREMERTON," Wash. Overdue after more than 36 hours, Major Frederick L. Martin, commander of the American aerial squadron seeking to fly around the world, is feared lost in a gale. Mr.

Billopp fident Living," "You Can Change the World," "The Magic of Believing," and "Your Creative Power." Now this list indicates at least two things one bad, one good. It indicates that the American people as a whole, or at least the literate middle-class reading public, suffers from a -neurotic lack of confidence and a sense of insecurity. It indicates, "as well, a groping toward something more satisfactory in than three bathrooms, two cars in every garage, and a video set. All these things are luxuries, or at least conveniences, which Americans share to a degree unknown to the other peoples of the world; but they are not the things which bring satisfaction to life and are not the things by which one lives. They merely are mechanical conveniences which, if looked upon as the final goal of existence, lead only to a wretched sterility of ideas, of faith, of creative ability, and even of simple satisfaction.

THE STREET Smith company's first publication was the New York Weekly, which proclaimed in bold type that it contained "useful knowledge, romance, historical items and amusement." In its infancy it was a mouthpiece for such great humorists as Josh Billings and Bill Nye. It carried the initial story from the pen of Horatio Alger. In; December, 1869, the Weekly ran the first of a long series of Buffalo Billyarns, written by Edward Zane Carroll Judson under the pseudonym of Ned Buntline. From that time on Buffalo Bill with his inevitable Winchester speaking for law and order became a fixture of American juvenile fiction. The Frank Merriwell stories, written by Gilbert Patten under the pen-name Burt L.

Standish for Street Smith Tip Top Weekly, appeared continuously from April 18, 1896, to March 6, 1915. When Patten began his series about his characters of the adventurous school boy athletic type he received a 3-year contract calling for $50 a week. Patten and the publishers had clashed when the latter insisted he use the name Burt L. Standish, apparently figuring that if worst came to worst another writer could be hired. Patten gave in, but after one particularly heated argument he quit.

The company had to hire three men. They couldn't come up to Patten's quality or quantity. Patten returned, receiving in the last four years of the Merriwell stories $150 at week, a stupendous salary in those days. In short, they are the victims of a mechanical-industrial civilization which, at times, is just as materialist as the Marxism of Stalin and Soviet Russia. And so they turn to books which offer to tell them how to enduro living, books which range all the way from psychological tricks and deceptions, to the bases of sound religious faith in God or at least a system which no man ever has been able to explain.

With the diminution of faith whether it be faith in God or in one's self comes the degeneration of character and selfrespect and in its train the drinking, the middle-aged neckiDg parties at the country club, the neglect of family. Then when they sober up, they are scared and begin the sordid round all over(again. It is a state of mind and cowardice which not only is fatal to the individ'jal but also is perilous, to any nation A good many of them are wretched because they never have found what it is they want to do in life, because they hate their jobs, and because in their lives is no purpose or direction. And, consequently, they have found any of. the enormous solace that comes from work, or learned that the man who likes his job never needs a vacation.

MAIL CHECKS ANYWHERE They are safe to send. Never mail cash. Open a. checking account with, us and pay your Mils tins safe, easy and sensible way. The bright young girl going to a spelling bee expects to be there for quite a spell.

CUT FLOWERS Cut flowers make delightful decorations for the dining room, living room and halls. But they cannot be displayed in a haphazard manner. They must be properly arranged. The woman of the house will, no doubt, have attended a series of lectures on flower arrangements. If not, she will have at least one friend with exquisite taste who may not know much about cooking or sewing, but does know how to take prizes at flower shows.

The first lesson learned in flower arrangement is that none of the vases or other con-tainers in the house will do. They will be either too tall or too fat. Cut flowers these days are not usually expected to stand up straight. Instead they are supposed to float. So something flat must be obtained.

Or, if the flowers are not supposed to float, they should describe a graceful curve. There will be doubt on the part of the person who has heard the lecture as to the nature of the curve. No matter how the flowers are arranged they will not look quite like the arrangement demonstrated at the lecture. It would be horrifying, indeed, if anyone were to say, "I am going to select the cut flowers I like and put them in a container the way I want them and I don't care how many rules are roken." Such an attitude would undoubtedly stamp the person who expressed it as being inartistic. Cut flowers will not, of course, last forever.

So, even when they have been arranged with great care and meet all the specifications of the experts, they cannot be prevented from wilting. It is too bad decorations which last such a short time cannot be simply arranged. Then when they withered one would not have the sensation of losing a work of art. You mifht almost say the list indicates that the American the midst of the greatest plenty and the greatest security the world has ever known, are a scared people. You then might ask, "What are they scared of?" They are scared of losing their jobs, scared of being themselves and saying "This is the wr I like to live.

To hell with keeping up with the Jones." They are scared often enough of their own distaste for the job that is supporting them. They are scared of the instability of married life because it is founded upon 'True Romance" and Some nurseries and plant dealers are offering to sell the general public Russian mulberry plants. Has the Broyles committee heard about this? MEMBER FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION The list of fiction books bears out the same indications. The gaudy super-colossal historical novels, which often enough have nothing to do with the reality of these times or any other times, have risen in popularity largely because people OTHER WRITERS of the Street Smith "alumni" over the years include Booth Tark-ington, Rupert Hughes, Fannie Hurst, Theo-dorer'TJreiser, A. Conan Doyle, Bret Harte, Rudyard Kipling, Clarence Budington Kel-land, Frank Norris, Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

Harry Leon Wilson, Edith Wharton and E. Phillips Oppenheim. Among the artists who have supplied illustrations for the firm's publications are N. C. Wythe, Norman Rockwell, F.

E. Schoonover, Howard Chandler Christy and James.Mont-gomery Flagg. As Street Smith prepared to embark upon a new era, Ormond V. Gould, grandson of Francis S. Smith, a founder of the company, said the other day in Florida that while he was reluctant to see the famed publishing house drop the pulps it was best to "change with the times." How right he appears to be! Successes in publishing pj-ove that American women are avid readers of women's magazines.

Street Smith apparently is on the financial high road again with Mademoiselle, Charm and Mademoiselle's Living, crrying topics bout road again with Mademoiselle, Charm and Mademoiselle's Living, carrying topics about the opposite terminus of civilization's shootin', bootin West From a standing start eleven years ago, farsighted Allen L. Grammer has built the combined circulation of the three magazines beyond the 1,272,000 mark. Life Can Be Beautiful Last December Mme. Chiang Kai-shek made a dramatic flight from China to the United States to plead for increased aid to the Chinese Nationalist government headed by her husband, the Generalissimo. She talked with President Truman, but she got no satisfaction.

After that she was heard from no more. In the meantime, her once-illustrious husband has gone into semi-exile, then given indications that he might come back out of his seclusion to take a hand in the losing battle against the Chinese Communists who are sweeping over the land. But all the while Mme. Chiang was not heard of by the American public. In the Far East there were rumors, of course.

The most persistent ones held that Mme. Chiang would continue her stay in the United States, as a political refugee. Reporters in Washington were told by officials at the Chinese embassy that Mme Chiang's future plans are unknown. They were able to discover, however, that the Generalissimo's wife is living quietly in seclusion in Riverdale, N. staying at the hsme of her elder sister.

Mrs. H. H. Kung, who has cancer. Mrs.

Kung's husband spends some of his'time there, the rest in Washing- Her Majesty's Cigaret Mary Van Rensselaer Thayer, in the Washington Post. Our ambassador to Great Britain, "Lew" Douglas, has a 21-year-old son who, until recently, has been working in a Texas oil-field. He arrived in London not lonS aS to visit his distinguished parents, and soon afterward found himself guest at an-intimate-as-possible-under-the circumstances royal dinner party. To his utter consternation young Douglas, fresh from the oil-field was seated next to Dowager Queen Mary. He was practically frozen with fear, during the meal and knocked for a loop when, after dessert, the imposing octogenarian Queen accepted a cigaret Noticing Douglas' amazement.

Her Majesty explained "I've taken up smoking quite suddenly. I real mm ASPHALT DRIVEWAY We Level the Pat On Layer of Hot Seal the Asphalt with White Rock Chips, Then Roll with a Gasoline Roller So It Will Be Firm, Compact and Not Wash Cost-of Average Drive 60 Ft. Long, 8 Ft. Wide. Only $35.00 Phone 4444 Free Estimate Phone 7441 724 Kerth Mircir Stmt Out of the Soil Iowa Falls Citizen.

Hybrid corn, new varieties of oats and soybeans and better farming methods are holding yields up and even boosting them far above previous marks. And the little dab of fertilizer that we throw on usually falls far short of beginning to replace the necessary elements which have been drained off in these bumper crops. We think it would be salutory indeed if each farmer wefe required to plant say five acres of the old open pollinated corn just to see what is really happening to yields and to his soil. ized only lately how much It em barrassed my sons guests if I didn't".