THE UNITED AMERICAN
February 1927
the sheet for sale, including a close-up picture posed
for, with the sleuths who affected the capture, proudly
displaying their captive, manacled to one or more of
his captors, to create the wanted news impression of
the ferocity of the culprit who played the. main part in
that particular drama.-----------
The daily press claims that it is “giving the public
what it wants.” Perhaps it is, but it is a lame excuse
to present in view of the consequences America is
collecting in human delinquency.
It is the mission of the press to uplift instead of
dragging down. If the skill of the news-writers that
are engaged in “coloring” crime news, were diverted
into the channels of coloring stories of the little
achievements for human goodness that’ can be found
everywhere, the public TASTE for “news” would
rapidly take a turn for the better.
GIVING
TT MAY be true that “Men give in proportion as
1 they receive,” as Knoeppel puts it, but there is
greater truth in this saying, if we reverse it, for
“Men RECEIVE as they GIVE.”
It is futile to expect to get something and not
give something—it is against God’s law. You must
put yourself into your work your business or your
profession before you can expect to get much out of it.
Has the thought accurred to you with respect to YOUR
Country? Have you received from America all the
fine things it has for you ? If not, have you GIVEN to
America any part of yourself ? Only by taking an in
terest in the things that are of, by and for America will
you perceive how wonderful it is to give without a
thought for what you ought to get in return for what
you do. By striving to do something for your adopted
country and for your fellow-citizens can you find
real happiness in citizenship and reap the full harvest
of true fellowship and good will.
There must be, in the finale, a net result of our
activities, something of value to the heart, mind and
soul, if we, as individuals, are to share in the dividends
that good citizenship earns.
WHAT IS A FORD?
IMTHETHER a Ford car comes within the provision
of the Oklahoma statute providing that “auto
mobiles and other motor vehicles shall not be exempt
from attachment, execution and other forced sales,”
was recently an issue before the courts in that state,
in case now listed as “First State Bank v. Pulliam, 112
Okla. 22, 239, Pacific 595.” The barrister, represent
ing the defense, contended that a Ford car was exempt
under the statute, and, to make matters plain, the
court was required to construe the meaning of the
law. That fact would be of little interest hadn’t the
language of the court, as recorded, been of material
interest to all those who drive around in what is
commonly termed a Ford car. Here is what the
court said:
It is not contended that a Ford car is a “tool,” and we have
never heard it called a “tool,” although we confess to having
heard it called everything else within the range of the
English language and several foreign languages. If exemp
tions could ever have been claimed for it under paragraph
The case may be persued further by looking up
annotations in 2 A. L. R. 827; 36 A. L. R. 670.
Now the question is: what does the owner of
what is termed a Ford car actually possess—an auto
mobile, a vehicle, a steam piano, a circus calliope or
an outfit of tools, utensils and instruments called an
“apparatus?” Judged by the volume of its sound, it
comes nearer being an apparatus or an organ than
anything else we know of, but the learned jurist who
construed the Oklahoma statute, despite his learned
discourse on the subject, has left us much in the
dark, and we are unable, from the court’s language, to
conjure a picture of positive classification.
And the question is as moot as ever:
What is a Ford?
The wife of a Sedro Wooley, Washington, plumber
who fared forth after dark in the little family car to take her
illicit lover for a ride along a lonely country road, took just
one ride too many along the path of frivolousness, alas her
lover is dead—his life shot and beaten out of him by her in
furiated husband who had tucked himself away in the tonneau
of the little car before his wife started out for her clandestine
tryst. Now that thé husband is in jail and the young man
she drove to his death has been laid away as a sacrifice
to her passions, the “cheat” must have a wonderful time of
it contemplating her harvest of murder and shame. The
“cheats” usually spear themselves in the end. Some of these
days another “friend husband” who works hard while his
friend wife is out with a lover, is going to take a lay-off and
trail his frolicking, good-time hunting spouse to her trysting
place. And another cheat will pay in blood and shame.
“Love thy neighbor as theyself” is a very old
doctrine which most people believe in but fail to exemplify.
It is simple and direct and antedates almost every other code
of human conduct. The writers of the Levitical law may or
may hot have coined the term, but in laying it down as a
basic doctrine, they fashioned a divinely inspired mandate,
which no one since has ever been able to make any improve
ments upon. The modern age has tried its hand at modifying
this doctrine, keeping only the first and the last word, but
the experiment has been anything but a success. “Love
thyself” is a doctrine simple enough, but it has hardened the
arteries of life because it left out the human touch and ceased
to radiate that warmth of neighborly love that makes all the
world akin.
A cannibal preserve among the primitive New
Guineans under England’s protection is the latest recommenda
tion on record coming from Englands great naturalist, Walter
Goodfellow, who, himself, has had many a narrow escape
from the stewpots of the hungry and very primitive natives,
Mr. Goodfellow’s brief for cannibalism is evidentally actuated
by his desire to leave unchanged some of the things which our
civilization has tampered with. He wants the country closed
to missionaries and traders, as it is “the last remnant of un
touched nature” where men still live in the Stone Age. “Let
cannibalism alone, it has its own natural check,” is the way
he puts it, in arguing that civilization is doing little good
for the tribe in question. New Guinea may be an excellent
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Page Thirteen
6595, Compiled Statutes 1921, and prior to the act of 1913,
it would have to fall within the term “apparatus” and all
lexicographers define “apparatus” as an “outfit of tools,
utensils or instruments adapted to the accomplishment of
any kind of work, or for the performance of an experiment
or operation; a set of such appliances, a group or set of
organs concerned in the performance of a single function.”
While a Ford car may emit as great a volume of sound
as a steam piano or circus calliope, we are not prepared to say
it is a set of organs and therefore not within the protection
of the statute exempting “apparatus” from attachment and
execution.