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Show . . : a 1 In the Money TTIIE classical masterpiece, "Yes, We Have 1 No Bananas," already has earned about 1 100,000 in royalties for its composers, Frank Silver and Irving Cohn. They expect to make at least JI7o,ooo more by the end of the year. Critics, with acid temperaments, must writhe in agony at this tit of news. The popularHy of "Yes, We Have No Bananas" made It the inevitable target of a lot of sour criticism. Partly due lo envy, partly to the principle noted by the psychologist, David Gibson, that the tree of much fruit gets the most clubs. Logically, the critics should concentrate con-centrate their ridicule on failure. Instead, they usually attack success. After all, isn't Jtoo.ooo a cheap price for the public to pay for the tremendous amount of diversion and fun derived from the bananas song? The public certainly got more than it paid for. Fun-Relaxation is cheap at any pric in our nerve-tense civilization of mechanical monotony. In this sense old P. T. Barnum was the Ideal type" of philanthropist. We rather- hesitate to spread the news that "Yes, We Have No Bananas" has earned Itoo.ooo for' Its authors. Hesitate because It may inspire thousands of bright young men and women to waste their time trying to counterfeit the success of this .song, written by others. There is always a 'market for S "Yes, We Have No Bananas." -But for each bananas-song success, fate has at least thousand thou-sand failures. You rarely hear of the failures. And such censorship Is a mistake, for this reason: In studying success we learn what to do.': In analyaing failure we learn what to avoid. And success depends fully as much on what we don't do as on what we do. |