A man who was walking through a train inadvertently left the door of one
of the cars open. A big man sitting in a seat in the middle of the car
yelled: “Shut the door, you fool! Were you raised in a barn?”
The man who had left the door open closed it and then, dropping into a
seat, buried his face in his hands and began to weep. The big man looked
somewhat uncomfortable and, rising finally walked up to the weeper and
tapped him on the shoulder.
“My friend,” he said, “I didn’t intend to hurt your feelings. I just
wanted you to close the door.”
The man who was weeping raised his head and grinned. “Old man,” he said,
“I am not crying because you hurt my feelings, but because you asked me
if I was raised in a barn. The fact is that I was raised in a barn, and
every time I hear an ass bray it makes me homesick.”
* * * * *
‘Throw Out the Life Line’
“How did you like the banquet last night?”
“Fine. There was a lady at the table across from me who had one of those
‘table line gowns’ on. She looked like Venus.”
“How do you know she had on a gown, then?”
“I dropped my fork.”
_Whiz Bang Editorials_
“_The Bull is Mightier Than the Bullet._”
There are many “Calamity Janes” in the U. S. A. One of their stock cries,
just after a crime has been committed is, “If she gets off, she’s going
in the movies!”
Let us look at the real facts. Searching the history of the moving
picture business, in not a single instance has a murder been starred in
pictures.
About seven or eight years ago a wealthy married man in Virginia was shot
by his wife (or was it by a girl in the case?)—Beulah Binford—because
he had trifled with her affections. The courts proved the man a rotter,
and because Beulah was a very young girl, she was released without a
prison sentence. Beulah’s heart and life were broken and she wanted to
bury herself in her little home town and try to start over again, but
she needed money. An unscrupulous promoter from New York who thought he
could profit by the notoriety caused by the crime, made her an offer to
be starred in pictures. Beulah went to New York. The picture was taken
but the police closed Madison Square Garden when it was scheduled to
show there. Even in those early days of picturedom, movie companies of
any standing were bitterly incensed against promoters who wanted to make
money by exploiting crime.
The tragic figure in this case was Beulah Binford herself. When the
picture failed to bring in receipts she was left alone and penniless in a
strange city. She went from studio to studio asking for work, but despite
the fact that she was beautiful, no one wanted to take a chance with her.
Finally the Republic Film Company, of New York, gave her a job sorting
papers in their office. She went through countless hardships in the city.
What has become of her, we do not know.
A few years later, in Wisconsin, a boy student killed his sweetheart in
a lonely wooded section not far from the state university buildings. The
case was never proved to have been premeditated murder and he was not
given a prison sentence. A well known New York syndicate writer, a woman
went out to Wisconsin and tied up the boy’s services for pictures. She
then hastened back to New York to sell the contract for a profit. Every
picture company in New York turned down her proposition to star the boy!
After Marie Edwards shot Senator Lyons a year or so ago in California,
she visited all the studios in Los Angeles in an attempt to get into the
movies. Not a single position was offered her.
Mrs. Louise Peete, who was recently sentenced to life imprisonment for
the murder of J. C. Denton at his home in Los Angeles, made overtures to
the picture companies during the time she thought she was going to be
freed. Not a single studio executive paid the slightest attention to her
attempts to be exploited on the screen.
The “son” of Senator New, who brutally killed his sweetheart in Topanga
Canyon near Los Angeles about a year ago, also thought he might follow a
picture career, but this was cut short when he was sentenced to twenty
years in the penitentiary.
Mrs. Marie Bailey, who shot her sweetheart, Clarence Hogan, in Pasadena
last December, told all reporters that she was going to be featured in
pictures as soon as she was released. Mrs. Bailey had previously played
in pictures, but when she was arrested, picture studios all made the
notation that she would never again be hired even as an “extra.” Marie
has gone “up” for ten years.
The Clara Hamon picture, “Fate,” although already produced, has not been
exhibited in the theatres. In the light of the history of past cases has
it a chance?
* * * * *
Burning kisses always go with sparks.
* * * * *
An authority once established is hard to controvert. That is why it
is going to be one heck of a job to knock any kind of a dent into the
present Volstead law prohibiting even a smelling acquaintance with wine,
beer or regular hard “licker.” Organized minorities vote solidly in
politics; the vote of the majority is scattered. There is nothing more
easily swayed than popular opinion and popular “passion” with the right
kind of propaganda.
I remember when Carpentier, the French fight champ, came across to
get his bump on the beak, Gus and I were discussing the antics of the
New York society women who “literally” fought with each other for the
privilege of kissing him at a garden party. It is the human nature of the
female of the specie to kiss the male brute at every opportune occasion,
and, under stress of easily aroused emotions, under other conditions as
well.
Emotion is a primitive human instinct and if women swarm to kiss a prize
fighter in these enlightened days, it is easy to understand how an
unorganized majority of males, as well as females, might be moulded by
proper propaganda to a conviction that this country will go to the bow
wows unless booze of all character and description is kicked into the
discard.
We must admit that the prohibition minority did not slip anything over
on the majority when it wasn’t looking. First they sneaked into a few
legislatures and then they put it through Congress and had it ratified by
their legislatures. The majority found out about it when it was too late.
All the majority can do now is to defy the Volstead law and vote down the
enforcement provisions of it. Some of them are doing this—while others
are becoming Cunard addicts and going to Europe and Havana.
Europe used to be a continent of kings—now it is only America’s corner
saloon.
We have never held any particular briefs for Squirrel whisky and other
forms of 100 proof “hootch.” But even our former president, Woodrow—what
was his name?—Wilson, is strong for wines and beers and we are willing
to stack with him on this question, at least. It is going to be a hard
job—getting any concessions from the prohibitionists. We believe Gus has
the right idea, however, when he says the day of the “bum voyage” to
Europe is nearing a close, and that the old familiar sign “Wines, Liquors
and Segars” may soon be dusted off and tacked up outside the front door.
* * * * *