MARCH, 1925
THE UNITED AMERICAN
Fage Thirteen
Measuring the American Order with Common Practices of the Past
The Chronic Faultfinders Who Blame Our Political, Economic and Social Order for Every Wrong of the
Present Day and are Laudatory in their Praise of the “Good Old” Days, will Reverse their Opinion if
they Check up on Some of the Relative Facts that are Abundantly Recorded on
the Pages of History.
Incidentally they May Become Better Citizens
Some interesting observations by Harry Dickson, in 'The Elks Magazine”
N ANY dismal, morning when a
O
fellow’s corns hurt, when bills are
piling up and the coal-pile’s disappear
manding bribes from every malefactor
of great wealth. So Bill contends that
dishonesty has been adopted as our
national policy, and that the stripes on
our flag ought to be convict stripes. •
Full of gloomy predictions Bill hangs
around the drug store, or huddles in his
Mourner’s Corner at the club, and be
wails this modern degeneracy, since all
kindness, all prosperity, 'and all honor
able intent 'have vanished from the
world. He has contracted a permanent
crick in his neck from gazing over his
shoulder at the smooth and shady road
we used to travel, where there were no
ruts, no broken bridges, no sharp turns
Where his father’s ox-wagon had to run
in second gear. As far as Bill can see the
sunshine casts no shadows on the past.
A spattering of melancholy folk agree
with Bill, and nobody ventures to dis
pute him when he gets his head sot.
None of the Grouch family can be
persuaded to look forward; to catch
their point of view we must turn round
and look 'back along the road. Then
perhaps we can show to Bill a few of
long, long distance since Eve bit a chunk
out of the apple and we began traveling.
Upon the whole our path has been up
ward, steadily upward. The march has
encountered many obstacles, and periods
of chaos during which we seemed to lose
our footing. At times we. missed the
road, and groped blindly through a wild
erness. Yet ever, when the smoke of
strife, has blown aside, we find the cause
of man a little bit advanced, and that
the rights we’ve gained, have been more
strongly fortified.
ing, when the market has stampeded
in a disastrous direction, when he re
members how 'some shark at the club
last night contrived to beat his ace-full
— that’s when, human institutions seem
going to the devil. Across the breakfast
table his wife pesters him for a new
limousine as he scans the optimistic
headlines:
“NO CHANCE FOR TAX REDUCTION.”
“We have lighted fires of freedom on a
“PRETTY MRS. SMITH AND LOVER
million altar stones
SLAY HUSBAND.”
“WAR BREWING IN BALKANS.”
With the fagots we have gathered at
“WHEAT FARMS SOLD UNDER
the blaze of burning thrones.”
MORTGAGE.”
Such
poetical bunk concerning freedom,
“MYSTERIOUS PAJAMA MURDER IN
Mr. Bilious Q. Grouch dismisses with
HOLLYWOOD.”
•a snort of contempt. There’s no such
“STRIKERS CLASH WITH TROOPS.”
animal as liberty; and for a thousand
. “SIX HANGED IN LOUISIANA.”
years our progress has been of the
“WASHINGTON CITY A GOMORRAH
crawing kind. Naturally Bill lives in
OF GRAFT AND IMMORALITY.”
the middle of Missoury, and you’ve got
That’s the dose he gulps down with
to show him. Therefore it might be
his coffee, all .the compressed meanness
illuminating if we only could deal with
of mankind, muckraked, giiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimu iiiiiiiii miiiimiiiiiimuiiiiiimiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiimu
mmmuimimmmmmmmmmmmimiimiiimu
Mr. Bilious Q. Grouch as
sifted, and stewed into
Mark Twain once treated
a fine pizen. It puts a |
A MERICAN'S by birth, adoption or in the making may have
I “A Connecticut Yankee,”
dark brown 'taste in his
|
21
many
good
reasons
for
complaining
about
the
many
im-
1 by taking him to King
mouth. Things look bad,
Arthur’s Court. Suppose
very bad, rotten. Through | perfections in our American fabric of political, economic and | we transport Mr. Grouch
blue spectacles he peers | social order, but if we were a bit more altruistic in our in- I ■backward, where he wants
at the road ahead, dread | dividual conduct in citizenship, with an eye to our own short- 1 to be, just drop him off
ing its crime and calamity, | comings as well as to the shortcomings of others and if we | the automobile, and let
battle and -murder, bank
him fall where he may.
ruptcy and sudden death. | at the same time were willing to make correct comparisons, | Not in malice, but for
|
past
and
present,
we
might
become
more
tolerant
and
fair
|
No wonder his breakfast
educational purposes; and
feels siekish.
| and willing to concede that despite our imperfections, entirely 1 Whether we deposited Bill
At such a bilious crisis | due to individual dishonesty, we have, in America, attained | a generation ago, or left
the normally sane Ameri
.him at the crossroads of
can is liable to become a | a state of perfection in our conduct of government, in our I some medieval century, he
grouch; in fact, he may f economic relations and in our social order .that is so far i would soon discover for
become Mr. Bilious Q. | ahead of anything that the world has ever known that we 1 himself that all was not
Grouch himself, who turns | would readily agree that the dreams of human deliverance, | beer and skittles, even in
his jaundiced eye toward = dreamt- by our forefathers some three to four hundred years | the good old days.
the past and deplores the
First and loudest Bill
good old days that are | ago, have been realized far beyond their imagination. The | growls about his taxes.
|
so-called
disillusioned
members
of
our
American
family
|
gone.
Everybody does. No citizen
According to Bill Grouch | who see nothing in America any more that is worth prais- | can pay his taxes with
those were happy days of | ing might give the matter a second thought after they | a grin, any more than
peace and justice, of obedi | have read the following contribution on the subject from 1 he can have 'his leg
■sawed off with a grin.
ent sons, of non-flapper
daughters and home-keep i Harry Dickson, an overseas veteran, who presented his | Bill’s special abomination
ing wives. Men were brave | views on Bill Grouch in a most extraordinary fashion | is this rubber tariff, these
and women virtuous. In f in- the November issue of “The Elks Magazine.” Dickson’s | inheritance taxes, the sur
those days our home team | article is colorful and saturated with wholesome humor. I tax, and other imposi
always won, fish bit more 1 His logic is sound and his comparisons are built on facts | tions so thick that a fellow
can’t step out of bed with
generously, and the right
candidates, were elected. | indelibly printed on the pages of history. — The Editor. | out getting into a tangle.
A villain then had no more Tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinih? Those are the outrages
that Bill wants to get
chance to thrive than he
now has in the movies. As Bill Grouch the mud-holes from which our ancestors away from, and go back to good old
methods when the world was young.
remembers most distinctly, we then had pulled themselves, a few of the hardships
* * *
nothing but patriots and statesmen in and oppressions that our sturdy fore
From the comic supplements Bill sees
public office, none of these cheap little bears have destroyed.
This human caravan has traveled a
Congress frittering its time in probes
grafters that hold out their hands, de