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THE TRI WEEKLY JOURNAL
ATLANTA, GA., 5 NORTH FORSYTH ST.
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THE TRI-WEEKLY JOURS’AT, Atlanta. Ga.
What the South Owes Her
School and College Teachers
THE average annual salary of school
teachers in the United States, urban
and rural districts together, is
six hundred and thirty-five dollars.
For city schools the average is eight
hundred and fifty-four dollars; for
country schools, four hundred and seventy
nine; and for high schools, one thousand
and ninety-nine.
If these averages were maintained in a
majority of the States, America still would
be open to the criticism of paying her school
teachers absurdly less than she does her
business and industrial workers. But in
twenty-seven States the average for teachers
In general is much below the nationa. mean
of six hundred and thirty-five dollars; in
Georgia, according to statistics of 1918, the
latest available, it is three hundred and
sixty-six dollars. Moreover, this general aver
age is much above the average for rural
teachers. In six States rural teachers receive
less than three hundred dollars a year; in
eight States, less than four hundred dollars;
and in the United States as a whole, less
than four hundred and seventy-nine dol
lars. Further, we have it upon the authority
of the Federal Bureau of Education, from
whose recent reports these figures are tak
en, that in 1918,
“There were tens of thousands of
teachers in the rural schools whose sal
aries for the year were less than the
States and counties in which they
taught allowed for feeding prisoners in
the county jails—and there are many
thousands of such in these schools in
' this year of 1920-21.”
It is not in rural schools alone, however,
nor only in elementary systems, that teach
ers’ salaries sink lamentably below tie im
portance of their realm of labor. “1 1 only
twenty-five States,” runs the official report,
“is the average salary of high school teach
ers as much as one thousand dollars. (1918
statistics.) In inly eight was it as much as
twelve hundred dollars; and only in the
District of Columbia, in which there are no
rural high schools, was it as much as fif
teen hundred dollars.” In weighing these
figures ...id comparing them with the aver
age wage of mechanical skill or of business
efficiency, it should be borne in mind that
“high school teachers are supposed to have
had four years or : lore of college work
after graduation from a standard high school
of four years, and are further supposed to
be men and women of such character and
personality as will enable them to control,
Inspire, and guide boys and girls effective
ly through the golden but dangerous period
of adolescence and youth.”
In colleges and universities, where ex
traordinary preparation and ability are re
quired of teachers, the situation is relative
ly no better. President Lowell, of Harvard,
has observed that members of his faculty
receive less remuneration than uneducated
trainmen, apropos of which he pungently
asks “Would you prefer to mind the train
or train the mind?”
This at Harvard, with its endowment of
forty-three millions! What, then, of our
Southern colleges and universities, the rich
est of which cannot hold a candle to such re
sources? Is it to be wondered that teachers
of rare gifts and distinguished scholarship
hav ebeen drawn, scores and hundreds of
them, from the South to Northern institu
tions sufficiently endowed to double, treble,
and quadruple the salaries offered them
here? To the glory of Southern educators, be
it said, the majority of them choose, like
the immortal Lee himself, to serve their
home-land at a sacrifice rather than reap
honors'and emoluments elsewhere.*At Emory
University today there are singularly able
scholars and teachers who have declined of
fers of more than twice their present sal
aries; and like instances there doubtless are
at Agnes Scott, Oglethorpe, the Tech, and
many another Southern school.
But noble as the spirit of these teachers
is, the conditions that make their sacrifices
needful are glaringly discreditable. Truly
has it been said, “The cheapest thing in the
wrold is a good teacher, at any reasonable
price.” When we fail to provide fair com
pensation for this all important service,
whether in grammar, schools, or high
schools, or in colleges and universities, we
fail in justice, in wisdom, in patriotism, in
all that is abidingly worth while. Better
salaries for teachers there must be if our
endeavor in education, which of all move
ments, social, economic or political, rises su
premely important, is to achieve due results.
This requires in the case of the commo i
schools, particularly hose of rura 1 districts,
a keener readiness on thr. part of citizens
to tax themselves that then children may
be taught and the community better served.
In the case of colleges and universities, it
requires increased endowments and, to that
end. full-sinewed support of such splendid
undertakings as the present campaign of
Southern Methodism to add thirty-three mil
* lion dollars to the resources of Southern
education.
Thirty-tnree millions! A modest sum in
deed for the Methodist colleges and univer
sities of the entire South when the single
State of Massachusetts has :ollege endow
mnets exceeding eighty-millions!
THE ATLANTA TRI-WEEKLY JOURNAL.
When Stranger Means Enemy
THE slowness with which war-time re-
strictions on travel in Europe unbend
prompts a correspondent who recalls
his Caesar more readily than most of us do,
to remark that classical Latin has the same
word for “stranger” and “enemy.” In our
own day, despite all the centuries since the
story of the good Samaritan was sown, we
still adhere largely to the Latin idea. What
and whom we do not know we are prone to
distrust, which is but another way of saying
that ignorance is the mother of prejudice.
Os some folk it undoubtedly is true that the
less we know of them the more we like them,
but happily that is not the rule. Even hus
bands and w’ives improve upon acquaintance,
as do also foreigners from the uttermost ends
of the earth. Human nature the world around
has more in common than it has apart.
That men have progressed toward this view
in their tortuous journey up the ages grows
evident when we think of how much more
freely the common traveler moves, how much
more hospitably he is received and provided
for new than, say, in the time of Herodotus,
who himself is really a modern, the count
less generations behind him being consid
ered. If Herodotus came to Atlanta today
he would be met at the Terminal by a cordial
delegation of college people, chamber of com
merce directors and city officials; he would
be photographed, limousined to luxurious
hotel apartments carefully reserved for him,
and there duly interviewed by O. B. Keeler;
he would lecture to admiring audiences, cap
tivate divers dinner parties, and go his way
feeling that the Georgia city was lot a whit
less home-like than Halicarnassus or Athens.
But when Herodotus set out to travel the
world as it was some twenty-three hundred
years ago he found but lenten entertainment
on the way. Inns there were, and cheerful
caravan parties, and in Egypt priestly and
princely hosts. But if ventured beyond the
highways the fare grew hard and the greet
ing suspicious, well-to-d and privileged per
son though he was. Imagine, then, the dif
ficulties and distresses of the less influen
tial traveler. Such folk, indeed, made no
distant journeys except under the protection
of a powerful chief or wealthy merchant, or
as sailors or rare pilgrims. To be a stranger
was to be an enemy.
The opinion has been ventured that if rail
ways had come a few decades earlier in Amer
ica there would have been no War Between
the States. Certain it is that freedom and
frequency of communication tend to prevent
misunderstandings between peoples as be
tween persons. The World War befell in
spite of telegraph, telephone, wireless and air
ship; but these nevertheless are instruments
with which earnest builders for peace and
good will will find their task much facili
tated. For in the heart of man there stirs a
seed-life of friendship and sociableness which
quickens and burgeons if given but half a
chance, which has grown from family to
tribe and from tribe to nation, which
branches today more generously than in ages
gone, and which is destined at last to sprea,d
around the earth those goodly leaves wherein
is “the healing of the nations.”
*
Taft for Chief Justice
THE expected appointment of Mr. Taft
as successor to the late Chief Jus
tice White is regarded generally with
satisfaction that is nowhere more cordial
than in the South. The excellent judgment
the former President showed in filling tne
Supreme Court vacancies which occurred
during his administration is an index to his
own judicial capacity. He it was who chase
Justice Lamar, of Georgia, and who made
Justice White, a veteran of the Old South,
chief justice, notwithstanding that Mr.
Hughes himself was then a member of the
court. Against precedent and against poli
tics Mr. Taft made these notable appoint
ments because he gave prime consideration
to the judiciary itself and the vastly impor
tant national interests it involved.
This attitude, together with his ripe ex
perience and distinguished attainments in
the law, marked him for preference in the
thought of thousands when the present va
cancy lamentably befell. Adverse opinion has
not been wanting. “The present Administra
tion,” writes one observer, “owes Mr. Taft
absolutely nothing. He does not belong to
the school of political thought typed by Mr.
Harding and his intimates; he was sntire
ly at variance with the sentiment which
nominated Harding at Chicago. Besides, he
is distinctly persona non grata to influen
tial Republican leaders in the Senate, whom
he antagonized throughout the treaty fight,
though he bowed when called upon to make
choice in the Presidential campaign.” All
this would be pertinent enough if Supreme
Jourt appointments were a matter for par
tisan and personal politics rather than for
thoughts toward the Republic’s highest
good. But the most vehement partisanship,
should be sobered in the face of so grave a
responsibility as that of selecting a chief
justice.
The likelihood, if not the certainly of the
situation, it may be assumed, is voiced by
David Lawrence when he writes from Wash
ington: “President Harding will name for
mer President Taft; that is his present in
tention as disclosed by those who have dis
cussed the matter with him.”
Those Who Will Prosper
SEASONABLE and. sound is the ad
vice of the Manufacturer’s Record
when it commends to the business
man of today the example of the farmer
who plow's and plants and cultivates, wheth
er skies are cheering or glum, all in the
faith that in due season he will reap. Thou
sands the country over “are out turning the
sod, buying fertilizer to the extent of their
iredit, and sowing seed, knowing that if
they did not they would starve next winter,
ind the country with them. They do not
wait until harvest time before they do this
work; they do it in order to make a harvest.
Will the manufacturer, the banker and the
merchant be less enterprising?”
The most brilliant and substantial achieve
ments in American industry have been by
men who saw the oak in the acorn, and be
yond the discouragements of a day or a
season discerned the fields of opportunity
ripening ahead. The business institutions
which thrived most in the. strenuous war
time were as a rule those that had taken
advantage of the quiet period preceding to
enlarge their producing capacity and to im
prove their facilities for service. The notable
successes of the future are being prepared
now. The manufacturers, the merchants, the
investors who will reap most freely the har
vests of busy months and years to come
are not inert and timorously unenterprising
today. Instead, they are going forward with
vigor and confidence, which are themselves
creative of prosperity.
“Stupendous" Waste
The indictment of American industry;
on grounds of waste through inefficiency
is all who too true. It is a distingished
technologist, Mr. L. W. Wallace, of Washing
ton, D. C., who most recently has pressed the
charge. Addressing the American Society of
Mechanical Engineers at their convention in
Chicago he described as “stupendous” the
wastage which the application of engineering
knowledge would prevent, and for which the
public as well as investors pay millions and
billions of dollars. There is, of course, but
one effectual remedy—education. When
science and its resources are duly appreciat
ed, and when there are enough trained hands
and trained minds to apply its principles, the
waste will fast diminish.
I PROVERBS FOR WORKERS
By H. Addington Bruce
YOU are disposed to rebel because life
imposes upon you the duty of work. You
perhaps try to evade work as much as
possible, deeming idleness pleasure and work
pain.
But the experience of centuries contradicts
this assumption. Only workers, indeed, can
really know pleasure. And those who succeed
in evading work are the most successful in
wooing pain.
Or, as has rightly bten insisted in proverbs
coming down to us from ancient times:
Better lost your labor than your time in
idleness.
Work has a bitter root, but sweet fruit.
A hundred years of idleness are not worth
one hour well employed
He who follows idleness shall find it the
path to distress.
Idleness must thank itself if it go barefoot.
It is more painful to do nothing than some
thing.
Idle folk have the most labor.
Rest is won only by work.
These are not mere epigrammatic sayings,
coined by some clever phrase maker. They
spring from the folk-soul of . many people in
many lands. Born often in agony of heart
they would warn later generations of the folly
of breaking nature’s fundamental law—work.
Nor is it enough to work from recognition
of the necessity for working. One must also
learn to love his work if he would fully profit
from it. Again ponder the testimony of the
proverb philosophers:
It is not the heart that does the work.
He is a bad workman who cannot talk work.
He never wrought a good day’s work who
went grumbling about it.
Diligent work makes a skillful workman.
This last saying refers, of course, more to
the manner of working than to the mood in
which the work is done. And manner of
working counts for far more than a multitude
of workers seem to think.
One may well exclaim, in the words of an
old-time Chinese proverb:
Never was good done without much trouble.
Or, with the long-gone Greeks:
A work well begun is half ended.
Or again, in proverbs culled from various
sources:
A work ill done must be twice done.
Slow work produces fine goods.
Mighty work must be done with few words.
Do the head work before the hand work.
Make no more haste'than good speed.
Whoever is in a hurry, showeth the thing he
is about is too big for him.
Put a stout heart to a steep hill.
These few gleanings from proverbial wisdom
I commend to any among my readers who
perchance shirk work, undervalue it, or frank
ly hold it in detestation instead of esteeming
it as all should.
THE RETURN TO NORMALCY
By Dr. Frank Crane
The fundamental force of the world
is health. By and by everything gets well.
And the world which has been desper
ately sick is going to get well.
Unseen and not spectacular the vast re
cuperatipe forces of humanity are gathering
strength.
Those who say that business in the
United States will never be what it was,
that we can never get back again to the
gold old days of 1913, are mistaken. We
shall get back to them and go far beyond
them.
So in time will the rest of the world
recover. The British Empire will solve its
perplexing problems, both Irish and in
dustrial, and once more discharge efficiently
the task for which destiny has designed it.
prance will bloom again, Italy will come
out of her troubles. Even Germany, Rus
sia and all Balkanized Europe will settle
down to work and to production.
It doesn’t take a prophet to foretell
this. All it takes is a knowledge of the
quite apparent laws of social progress.
If we can only, by some sort of concert
of nations, remove the possibility of another
war there is no doubt of eventual prosperity
everywhere.
But we must not look for this too soon.
Mr. Horace S. Wilkinson, at the head of
the Crucible Steel company, uttered some
very sound opinions recently. Mr. Wilkin
son, at the head of any army of 40,000 pro
ducers, ought to know what he is talking
about. He understands the steel business
and steel might be called the backbone of
all business.
He said in substance,:
“The world is in a very bad way and
it is not going to get well in a hurry. The
affairs of readjustment are in operation and
readjustment takes time. It only takes a
minute to break your arm, but it takes
a good many weeks for your arm to get
well.
“And there can be no permanent recov
ery until everybody gets rid of the septic
ideas engendered by the war. We all spread
too much. Every one seems to think that
the inflated profits and wages and prices
of war times are going to continue. They
will not because they are not sound.
“Already the producers know this, and
have trimmed down expenses mercilessly
and cut prices. The retailer has not yet
fully realized this. He has stocked up goods
at a high price and he is not willing to take
his loss and mark them down. The result
is what you call a buyer’s strike. Railroads
and manufacturing concerns will not buy a
million dollars’ worth of supplies when
they think that by waiting they can get
them for half a million. For the same rea
son a man will not pay sl2 for a hat and
sls for a pair of shoes and $l6O for a suit
of clothes no matter what the retailer had
to pay for them himself, because he knows
in time these prices must be scaled down.
“The only way to get universal pros
perity is for everybody to accept the fact
that he must readjust his business. He
must take his loss and start over and the
longer he postpones this the worse it will
be for him and for the country.
“There is no doubt of eventual pros
perity, but that will only come when there
is a universal acceptance of the situation
and the whole business world gets down to
a sound basis.”
(Copyright, 1921, by Frank Crane.)
A Large Poultry Farm
Several years ago practically every coun
ty in Georgia was manifesting interest in
breeding fancy poultry, but the fever was
only temporary. Those who remained in the
business are deriving a big profit fropi their
investment. The Weekly Bostonian says:
“The Royal Poultry Farm, owned by F.
L. Bradshavv and Dr. Roy Ramsear, is being
developed into one of the largest poultry
farms in the South. This company moved
into their new quarters just aftei the first
of the year and since that time they have
improved their grounds, put up new fences
and cross fences, built one large barn or
supply house, one feed house, seven or eight
new poultry houses, and have put a good
many hundred dollars in new equipment of
, various kinds.”
DOROTHY DIX TALKSA WOMAN’S MONEY I
BY DOROTHY DIX
WHAT is a woman to do who has in
herited a nice little fortune? Shall
she turn it all over to her husband,
or keep it herself?
I suy that she should keep it herself.
If her husband is the right sort of man, he
will be glad to know that she is protected
against the hardships of poverty and want,
no matter what befalls him, and if he is the
wrong sort of man, she will need, her money
more than ever.
For that type of husband never treats
the wife who is financially independent as
meanly as he does the one who is dependent
upon him.
I believe that the married woman who
has money should keep her financial affairs
in her own hands, and separate from her
husband’s, for many reasons. First, because
it makes the family doubly safe. All of the
eggs are not in one basket. If the husband
is a good business man, he will not need the
wife’s little roll, and if he is a poor busi
ness man, the wife’s income helps out, and
keeps the wolf from the door, and sends
the children to school.
Until within a comparatively short time
ago, a woman’s property automatically
passed to her husband on her wedding day.
Many women still put everything they have
unreservedly into the hands of the men they
marry, and merely sign on the dotted line
whatever paper the husband brings to them.
The result is that all of us know dozens
of women, who were reared in the lap of
luxury and inherited fortunes, who have
been brought to direct poverty by their hus
bands.
Most of these men did not intentionally
rob their wives. They were just bad man
agers, or reckless speculators, and they took
risks with the money they had not earned,
that they would never have taken with
money for which they had toiled and sweat.
Come easy, go easy, is the eternal law of the
dollar. You rarely see either men or women
wasting the pennies that repesent their own
hours of toil and sacrifice. It’s inherited
money, or married money, they throw at
the birds.
Some of the most lovable men in the
world, the kindest, the best, the tenderest,
the most ideal husbands in all the higher
matters, are utterly incapable of taking care
of money. The very qualities that make
them so adorable, unfit them for practical
matters. Their softness of heart that can
never say “No;” their cheery optimism that
refuses to look on the dark side of any
proposition; their hope that is confident
everything will turn out all right; their
visions and their dreams, all make them the
predestined prey of every sharper, and
schemer, and vendor of gold bricks that
comes along.
Such a man is always on the verge of
making billions, and he has no hesitation
in taking his wife’s last cent to invest in
some mine in Peru, or invention for making
gold out of sea sand; and he is surprised
and broken-hearted when the scheme goes
to pot and everything is swept away. But
THE FOREIGN FILM INVAS
NEW YORK CITY, May 23.—Civil war
has broken out in the moving picture
industry. Those w r ho, only a few
months ago, stood solidly united in the fight
against censorship, now are split into two
bitter and belligerent factions by a new issue
—the importation of foreign films.
Since the successful introduction of the
German film, “Passion,” not long ago, dozens
of German film productipns have been re
ceived in this country, forty-six recently ar
riving in one week. And they are still com
ing in, with no end of them in sight. En
couraged by the German success, moreover,
the French are now making films with the
American market in view, and the Italians,
who are famous for the artistic quality of
their pictures, are said to be speeding us
sample products.
This flood of importations is regarded
with the most serious misgivings by actors,
directors and others employed in our own
moving picture industry, who realize that it
means a curtailment of production in this
country. They know that for every foreign
film bought by an American producer he will
make one less over here and employ corre
spondingly fewer people. The picture people
have already lived through an exceedingly
lean year while the big producing companies
were getting rid of their surplus stock. Now
they face an even greater crisis if the influx of
foreign films keeps up.
Thus, the war cry is being sounded
throughout the industry and the various or
ganizations of actors, directors, assistant di
rectors, scenario writers and camera men are
sharpening their weapons for a stiff fight
against the foreign films. Leading the re
bellion is the Actors’ Equity association,
which has enlisted the aid of the American
Legion and is preparing to take the matter
up with congress, with a view to securing
a protective tariff.
The opposition has become so intense that
when “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” (the
new German futuristic film which has cre
ated such a furore) was exhibited in Los
Angeles a few weeks ago, it was boycotted.
Protests were first lodged by the American
Legion, the Motion Picture Directors’ asso
ciation, the International Alliance of Theat
rical Stage Employes and Moving Picture
Operators. When the theater management
paid no attention to the protests, pickets
from these organizations, including wound
ed veterans of the war, were stationed out
side the theater with banners admonishing
the public not to patronize it.
Boycotting a Film
The demonstration, which lasted from the
opening time on Sunday until 8:30 at night,
was unquestionably successful. Up until 6
o’clock about 75 persons entered the theater,
while less than that number attended the
evening show. Thousands were attracted
to the neighborhood, but they merely stood
on the sidewalk and viewed the proceedings.
When a patron emerged from the theater he
was jeered at, but there was no violence of
any kind. At 8 o’clock the theater manage
ment announced that another picture had
been substituted for the German film.
The great menace of the foreign films
from the American picture people’s stand
point is their remarkably low cost. Owing
to the difference in American and European
exchange rates, they can be bought for a
mere song and distributed at a tremendous
profit. “Passion,” for instance, which is
said to have been bought for a pittance, has
already brought its American distributors
over $1,000,000. Some of the films, elabo
rately staged and containing massive scenes
showing 10,000 people in action, are sold for
$2,000 apiece.
Furthermore, the new foreign films are
tremendously popular. Except in the Los
Angeles instance, where the theater was pick
eted, they have drawn unprecedented crowds,
and hence are much in demand by moving
picture exhibitors. Not only has the public
forgotten its supposed distaste for costume
plays, and given the German pictures its en
thusiastic indorsement, but American critics
have given them a royal welcome. “Passion”
was the first picture since Griffith’s “The
Birth of a Nation,” which made the movie
critics drop their stereotyped phrases and
launch forth into original and impassioned
eloquence. Columns of praise were heaped
SATURDAY, MAY 28, 1921.
the money is gone, and there is as little
profit in crying over spilt dollars as there is
in crying over spilt milk.
Such a man needs to be taken care of
as if he were a child, and his wife can only
do it by keeping a death-grip on her own
pocketbook. Moreover, the woman who in
herits money owes something to the parents
who toiled and saved that their children
and their children’s children might have
the advantages that money gives, and that
perhaps they did not have in their youth.
The man who lays up a fortune is thinking
for the future. He is thinking of his grand
children, and planning to give them an edu
cation and a start in life, and his daughter
is in honor bound to fulfill his desires as
far as she can. She has no right to turn
the money over to a stranger to waste, and
so risk her children’s inheritance.
Os course, it will be said that now and
then a wife does give her property to her’
husband, and he turns a few thousand dol
lars into a fortune. True. There are ex
ceptions to every general rule, but the man
who has the money-making instinct would
make his fortune anyhow, and taking it by
and large, the risk is too great. Nine times
out of ten, the woman is better off to keep
her own.
But the woman who inherits money
should play fair with it. She should keep
the principal, but spend the income for the
benefit of the family, and not selfishly use
it for her own benefit.
If she has enough to be personally in
dependent, she should n,ot expect her hus
band to pay all her bills, or those of the
house. Her money should be the velvet
that enables the family to live more com
fortably, and indulge in luxuries that they
could not otherwise have.
And the clinching argument for a
woman’s keeping her own money is because
there is no other thing under the sun that
brings with it so much self-respect, such
an ineffable sense of independence, as to
have your own money that you can spend
as you please, and for which you do not
have to give an account to any human be
ing. No matter how generous and kind a
husband may be, his wife has a sense of
degradation and humiliation every time she
has to go to him for money. The woman
who has a chance to save herself that, and
doesn’t do it, ought to have her head oper
ated on for the sillies.
Also a man treats every woman who
has money in her own right, differently
from the one who hasn’t. This instinctive
kowtowing to money extends even to wives,
and so the woman who wishes to keep her
husband on his good behavior, does well
to keep him interested in her.
There is no financial problem more com
plicated than the domestic one, but the
woman who keeps her money may be sure
of one thing. She is playing a safe game,
instead of taking a flier on her comfort
and happiness.
(Copyright, 1921,. by the Wheeler Syndi
cate, Inc.)
ON—By Frederic J. Haskin
upon the Polish star, Pola Negri,
and the frankly German director, Lubitsch,
all interspersed with unwelcome comparisons
of the German film and the typical American
production. <
The next German film, “Deception,” has
earned an almost equally favorable reception.
Here is a sample of the sort of thing which
the American movie ranks are finding so de
pressing:
“Deception,” by an odd paradox, is a Ger
man picture about English history. It tells
the story of Anne Boleyn, the second charmer
is the sextet of wives of King Henry VIII
Both as an historical and as a human docu
ment. it is magnificent. Lubtisch (the di
rector) brings history to life and turns dead
and gone figures into human beings. It is
an old saying that the public does not want
historical dramas and that no one will go to
see costume plays. But “Deception” has
proved that the public is ten times more in
terested in an historical drama than they
are in the average brand of treacle handed
out by directors who have neither educational
background nor imagination. The picture de
fies another rule of routine production: it
ends tragically. The only quarrel those who
saw it had with the picture was that it ended
too soon. Most of them would have been
happy if Lubitsch had gone on and filmed
the rest of English history.
. German Propaganda Again
It was immediately after this that the old
war-time cries of “German propaganda” be
gan to be circulated on Broadway. It was
pointed on that “Deception” was really noth
ing more than a scandalous episode in Eng
lish history; that the Germans had deliber
ately selected Henry VIII for picturlzation
because he was a tyrant and a libertine and
ate venison dipped in gravy with his fingers.
Anne Boleyn had been represented not as the
scheming vixen history paints her, but as
merely a weak and cruelly sinned against
woman. “Huh,” said the American picture
people vindicatively, “we notice that the
Germans stick carefully to the history of
other nations. They don’t dare film any of
theif own!”
To this charge the defenders of the films
retort that even if they do contain propa
ganda (which they do not grant) there is
nothing to prevent the French and British
from retaliating in kind An investigation of
German monarchs would probably yield a
rich harvest of lurid material which the
American public would be only too delighted
to review, they point out. Furthermore, the
first French film to reach us, “J’Accuse,” is
frankly a propaganda picture, depicting som
of the worst phases of the late war. The
soft pedal is placed on German brutality, it
is true. There are no seductions of nuns or
mutilations of Infants in the picture, but it
is a plea for sympathy for the French na
tion, which is struggling so bravely to re
cover from the desolation of the war.
But propaganda or» not, the champions of
the new foreign films declare that they are
a welcome relief from the average American
movie which is largely devoid of artistic
merit. While “Gypsy Love,” the »£test Pola
Negri film, does not live up to the high
standard set by the first foreign pictures, the
majority is said by those who have seen them
to be exceptionally good. In many respects,
it cannot be denied, the European directors
are ahead of our directors over here. For
instance, nothing has yet been produced in
this country to compare with the artistic sets
designed by a noted European modernist for
“The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.” It could
easily be done in Hollywood. We have plenty
of artists in this country who could achieve
equally good results. But the fact remains
that it has not been done.
The moving picture people themselves are
willing to admit this. It is not the artistic
merit of the new foreign films to which they
object nor of which they are jealous. They
have been eagerly viewed by actor and di
rector folk, who are always open to sugges
tions for improving their own work. It is
the cost of the pictures which they resent —a
cost with which the American industry can
not begin to compete. In this way they see
a real danger which threatens the livelihood
of over 60,000 American bread-winners, and
which eventually may turn this nation from
the world’s greatest producer of films into
its greatest film buyer.
Around the World
Tri-Weekly News Flashes From All Over
the Earth.
. Hun Bequest Stopped
A bequest of $2,000 to the German Red
Cross provided for in the will of Lewis O.
Ruhland, of Cranston, R. 1., has been disal
lowed by the superior court. In its decree
the court holds that as the United States
was at war with Germany at the time the
bequest was made, payment of the money is
forbidden under the trading with the enemy
act.
Petrograd Strike
A tramway strike has broken out in Petro
grad and a railway strike is threatened, the
Reval newspapers declare, because of the re
ported inability of the Bolshevik government
to fulfil the promise of increased food rations
made at the time of the Kronstadt revolt.
One report says that for the last week only
one-eighth of a pound of bjead has been
doled out daily to the population.
Custer Veteran Dies
George Gee, Chinese, former army cook,
who was one of the few survivors of the Cus
ter massacre, died in Sitka, Alaska, recently.
Because of Gee’s military services the Sitka
post of the American Legion conducted the
old Chinaman’s funeral.
Records show that Gee, after serving the
army, was a cook in the navy twenty years.
He came to Alaska several years ago. Gee,
telling of the Custer massacre, said he es
caped death because the general had detailed
him to look after the baggage of the com
mand.
• I
“Beer” Suits
Prohibition has failed to eliminate the
“beer suits” of the seniors of Princeton uni
versity. The members of the graduating
class have donned this distinctive costume,
which they will wear for the remainder of
the college year.
The “beer suit” consists of white overalls,
a painter’s white coat and engineer’s black
cap with a.long visor. Last year’s class wore
morning bands on the sleeves of their “beer
suits” in memory of John Barleycorn. This
year every left sleeve is marked with three
black service chevrons, each representing six
months of prohibition.
Against Pigeon Shooting
English public opinion is being stirred by a
concerted attack by the press against pigeon
shooting, and as a result a bill has been in
troduced in Parliament which would make
this form of sport illegal.
The storm arose over a contest recently at
Chatham, where live birds were released from
traps for a shooting competition. Support for
the proposed anti-shooting measure is prom
ised by the government and is being warmly
given by the Royal Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals.
Agitation against this form of sport has
extended to Monte Carlo, where many upper
class English spend part of the winter, and
where the practice is said to be an institution.
The Prince of Monaco is reported to be sym
pathetic to the attempt to eliminate the live
pigeon shooting and to substitute clay pig
eons. ,
Liquor Camouflage
In the contest to discover the most inge
nious means of deflecting attention of prohi
bition enforcement agents, customs officers of
New York believe this contrivance deserves at
'least honorable mention:
In their search of the steamship Glendoloa
the inspectors obeyed a “hunch” and rum
maged through the ship’s cold storage plant.
Frosting on the large cakes of ice, making
thme quite opaque, whetted their suspicions,
and they scraped off the coating. An impro
vised X-ray made by attaching reflectors to
electric light bulbs revealed bottle-shaped
black spots within the translucent blocks.
More than 200 bottles of whisky had been
thus frozen into these glacial hiding places,
they said. ,
Oranges Shipped in Baskets
The scarcity and high cost of boxes has
prompted California fruit growers to try the
experiment of shipping oranges to the eastern
market in bushel baskets.
Praises Italy
A farewell banquet was tendered the retir
ing American Ambassador, Robert Under
wood Johnson, by the Italo-American Society
at Rome last week.
Mr. Johnson, replying to an address by
Senator Maggiorino Ferraris, who spoke in
the name of the society, declared his short
diplomatic experience in Italy had strengthen
ed his admiration for the Italians.
“I take pride that, during the most anxious
period of your industrial difficult' . I cabled
my government that Italy would not Bolshev
ist,” Mr. Johnson declared. “I am happy that
prophecy has proved to be true.”
Wilson Club
Commemorating the work accomplished
during the war and the peace conference by
ex-President Wilson, who was a member of
the class of 1879 at Princeton University, a
meeting was held on the campus to organize
a Woodrow Wilson club. A considerable
number of the faculty and student body at
tended the organization meeting, which was
held for the purpose of electing officers and
adopting a constitution.
Some fifty colleges and universities of the
United States are now forming similar clubs
to commemorate ex-President Wilson’s efforts
for world-wide peace. The clubs intend to
establish Woodrow Wilson scholarships in the
various collegiate institutions throughout the
country similar to the Rhodes’ scholarships
in England.
Lenine Fails
Lenine’s abandonment of government con
trol of foodstuffs came too late to relieve
the situation in Bolshevik Russia, accord
ing to letters received in Berlin from a fam
ily which has lived in Petrograd throughout
the Bolshevik regime.
“The conditions are worse for us than
they were when food was issued on cards,”
one letter states. “We are told now that we
may sell food without violating government
regulations. But there are no food shops.
And the peasants about Petrograd have lit
tle food to sell. They don’t want paper rubles.
“They even refuse all sorts of manufac
tured articles in exchange for what little
food they may have. They are afraid to give
it up, as they are not sure they can get an
other crop the .oming year.
“The Petrograd district is so sterile that
little is produced here in normal times.
Transportation is so bad, and the peasants
in the grain districts have been so badly
treated by the Bolshevik requisitioning par
ties, that the government simply couldn’t
continue the small rations it was issuing on
cards. So it told us to do for ourselves a
job which it could not accomplish with all
its power and military force.
“The re-establishment of free trade and
the announcement that government restric
tions have been reduced will not put food
into cities which have no supplies, which
have no adequate railway connections with
grain districts and no means of reconciling
peasants who attribute most of their trou
bles to the two great cities in Russia and
want to starve them out.”