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every city in the land, and know them by their
sparkling diamonds, their nervous, exhausted fea
tures. marrow out of their bones, and heet ie-tlushed
cheeks. A fortune is all they have; the red. happy
face of the honest farmer or grocer, which is worth
more than gold. bringing health, happiness and sat
isfaction in death, they do not know, nor can they
know.
It is unjust to them, it is taking their birthright
away from them, to legalize a business in which the\
degrade* and torture themselves. causing them unhap
piness ami misery in lift* and frightful horrors in
passing from it.
RAG-TIME MUSIC AND COMIC-SUPPLEMENT ART.
y.-* ■■■ I—■ IHI ra I^——iXCTMi
At one of tin* Georgia teachers' associations tin*
writer, not many years since, listened to an amusing
lecture by a member in which the reading of ’’dime"
novels was encouraged on the false assumption that
such literature would lead some people, who would
not otherwise become readers at all, to develop a
taste for good reading and so come to know the dif
ference between tin* real and tin* unreal, the pure
and the impure—the difference between a bull-frog
and a wood thrush.
In simple justice to the intelligence of tin* large
majority present it should be stated that the sugges
tion was not very well received.
Intelligent observation, even ordinary common
sense, is sufficient to teach anyone that tin* public
taste will demand only that which it has been edu
cated up to. and no more.
It will be. it must be. admitted by al! that some
of the sickly, trashy literature of our day has its
influence, but this influence is not to raise and ele
vate: it is to lower and degrade*.
It is not fair, nor is it just, to allow children to
grow up on such mind-food. Raised upon such tin- <
wdmlesome stuff, how can they have any appetite tor
real music, real drama, real art.’ Observe* their flock
ini’’ to the average cheap vaudeville performance,
which is neither refined nor pleasing. except to those
with a taste for horse-play.
It is a deplorable sign of the times, this generous
appreciation of a sentimental, maudlin literature, of
a rag-time music and comic-supplement art. It can
have no other effect than to appeal to the mob, to
the baser passions of our nature.
Those comic supplements of the Sunday newspa
pers, those atrocities wherein art* depicted the pleas
ing spectacle of somebody being hurt, of children
placing hob-naileel jokes upon their elders, the point
of the supposed joke being usually a bump on tin*
elders' head, may provide excellent meat for the
young minds of a nation already famous for its bad
manners, but they have no fruits of genius such as
Greece carried to mankind in her marble, Italy in her
paintings. Germany in her music. England in her
law and literature and Ireland in her mirth, laughter
and love. America is left alone to boast a proud
superiority of producing something which all of
these combined could not evolve: Mister Hooligan
THE REASON
They alone are not responsible. Law-givers must
share with them, like and like. Every man who
votes against the pending bill emght. and some day
shrill. feel tin* heavy hand of retribution on his head.
Indeed, it is a question whetln r or not a num who
can prevent a crime but doesn’t, is not more guilty
than he who actually commits it. We can stop lids
robbery of tin* poor and ignorant, if is easier of
handling than almost any social problem confront mg
us; and it' we do not do it. we have onl\ ourselves
to blame for the consequences sure to follow.
and Mule Maud. Buster Brown and the Katzenjam
mers. '‘hot-time music and iive-cent shows.’ w here
the acme of stupidity is reached within the limits of
human endeavor.
Am! to these delectable performances tin* child
ren crowd and learn therefrom considerably more
than their prayers. 1 pon the screen before them
mama finds in papa s pocket a photograph of another
lady, presumably handsomer and more attractive
than sin*. Tin* next slide presents mama attacking
papa, the inevitable thumps on the head being fol
lowed by a lew good kicks as papa falls and rolls
on the floor. Or mama deceives papa laughably,
papa takes his revenge bloodily, and the* children sit
there and drink it all in. Or the precocious brat
takes the center of the limelight and performs; or
mama has fallen by the wayside and papa's little
gur-1-1-1 schreechmgly comments on the sad occasion
and brings mama back to the that, where the “plan
ner" is plush-covered and the carpet rivals the rain
bow. Which is all very delectable ami encourages
virtue in t In* young.
We have kindergartens and mothers' clubs, and
God knows what not; women's (dubs and the study
of literal lire. usually out of tin* Encyclopedia Brit
tanica ; vet we give tin* chilelren tin* comic supple
ments every Sunday that rolls over their heads, and
take them into a stiftling hall outside* of which a
steam engine nuisance shrieks and brays rag-time
“twunes" and inside* of which an “artist" with tin*
wit of the* trogdolile and the* humor of a rhinoceros
does his st unt; another “art ist " w ith a voice bet ween
a tin whisth* and tin* river siren, accompanied by
the* pounding of a painful piano, gives a eoon lady's
lament about her darlin’ man, or promises to meet
his bride by the riverside, or twaddles that “him and
her" will spoon, spoon, if you'll hurry out, June
Moo-( )-n.
A people feel on this sort of slops would demand
that William Shakespeare* black his face* and do a
turn with the hemes and Beethoven give them a turn
on a barrel-organ. They would believe that Plato
is a patent knife-polish and Homer a carrier pigeon.
Why not .’ Their music has been screeched into them
by a steam “pianner." the*ir pictures have been kick
ed into them by Mister Happy Hooligan’s Mule
Maud. To speak in keeping with tin* subject, you
can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
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