Nonsenseorship | Page 6

the drys was the agreement that liquor should not be served to minors.
On the contrary, the provision should have been that drink ought not to
be permitted to any man more than thirty years of age. Liquor was
never meant to be a steady companion. It was the animating influence
which made oats wild. Work and responsibility are the portion of the
mature man. Rum was designed for youthful days when the reckless
avidity for experience is so great that reality must be blurred a little lest
it blind us.
We happened to pick up a copy of "The Harvard Crimson" the other
day and read: "The first freshman smoker will be held at 7.45 o'clock
this evening in the living room of the Union. P. H. Theopold, '25,
Chairman of the Smoker Committee, will act as Chairman, introducing
Clark Hodder, '25, and J. H. Child, '25, the Class President and
Secretary respectively. After the speeches there will be a motion picture,
and some vaudeville by a magician from Keith's. Ginger ale, crackers,
and cigarettes will be served. All freshmen are invited to attend."
They used to be called Freshmen Beer Nights and in those days the
possibility of friendship at first sight was not fantastic. We feel sure
that it cannot be done on ginger ale. The urge for democracy does not
dwell in any soft drink. The speeches will be terrible, for there will be
no pleasant interruptions of "Aw, sit down," from the man in the back
of the room. If somebody begins to sing, "P. H. Theopold is a good old
soul," it is not likely to carry conviction. Not once during the evening
will any speaker confine himself to saying, "To Hell with Yale!" and
falling off the table. Probably the magician will not be able to find
anything in the high hat except white rabbits.

Although we have seen no first hand report of that freshman smoker,
we feel sure that it was only a crowded self-conscious gathering of a
number of young men who said little and went home early.
Even from the standpoint of the strictest of abstainers there must be
some regret for the passing of rum. What man who lived through the
bad old days does not remember the thrill of rectitude which came to
him the first time he said, "Make mine a cigar."
Though they have taken away our rum from us we have our memories.
Not all the days have been dull gray. Back in the early pages of our
diary is the entry about the trip which we made to Boston with William
F---- in the hard winter of 1907. It was agreed that neither of us should
drink the same sort of drink twice. Staunch William achieved nineteen
varieties, but we topped him with twenty-four. Upon examination we
observe that the entry in the memory book was made several days later.
The handwriting is a little shaky. But for that adventure we might have
lived and died entirely ignorant of the nature of an Angel Float.
In those days human sympathy was wider. F. M. W. seemed in many
respects a matter-of-fact man, but it was he who chanced upon the 59th
street Circle just before dawn and paused to call the attention of all
bystanders to the statue of Columbus.
"Look at him," he said. "Christopher Columbus! He discovered
America and then they sent him back to Spain in chains."
He wept, and we realized for the first time that under a rough exterior
there beat a heart of gold.

LITERATURE AND THE BASTINADO
[Illustration: Ben Hecht chopping away at the ever-forgiving and
all-condoning Bugaboo of Puritanism.]
BEN HECHT

Surveying the trend of modern literature one must, unless one's mental
processes be complicated with opaque prejudices, wonder at the
provoking laxity of the national censorship. I write from the viewpoint
of an aggrieved iconoclast.
It becomes yearly more obvious that the duly elected, commissioned
and delegated high priests of the nation's morale are growing blind to
the dangers which assail them. If not, then how does it come that such
enemies of the public weal as H. L. Mencken, Floyd Dell, Sherwood
Anderson, Theodore Dreiser, Dos Passos, Mr. Cabell, Mr. Rascoe, Mr.
Sandburg, Mr. Sinclair Lewis are not in jail? How does it come
Professor Frinck of Cornell is not in jail? Bodenheim, Margaret
Anderson, Mr. John Weaver are not in jail.
Were I the President of the United States sworn to uphold the dignity of
its psychopathic repressions, pledged on a stack of Bibles to promote
the relentless pursuit and annihilation of other people's happiness, I
would have begun my reign by clapping H. L. Mencken into irons
forthwith. Mr. Cabell, I would have sent to Russia. Sherwood Anderson
I would have boiled