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Show ZJ about: The Good Old Days. SANTA MONICA, CALIF. Taking pen in hand to write Uncle Sam's check for that next installment, I look longingly backward to what I'm sure was the golden age of our generation. It was the decade that began soon after the turn of the century and ended with 1914. Kings lolled securely se-curely on comfy thrones and dictatorships dicta-torships in strong nations were undreamed un-dreamed of. Without shaking the foundations of the financial temple, Teddy Roosevelt was filing the alligator, alliga-tor, tnpth nf nreda- tory wealth. Irvin S. Cobb People laughed at the mad suggestion that there could ever be another great war let alone a world war. With suffrage in prospect, women were going to purify politics. Taxes were a means unto an end and not the end of our means. Standards of living climbed faster than did the costs of living. Automobiles were things to ride in at moderate speed, not engines to destroy human life with. Millions actually believed that, If prohibition by law ever became effective, ef-fective, drunkenness would end and crime decrease. Yes, I'm sure those were Indeed the happy days the era when the Twentieth Century limited started running and W. J. Bryan stopped. Synthetic Imitations. WE STOPPED at a wayside station sta-tion advertising pure orange juice; there's one every few rods. Next to autograph hunters, oranges are the commonest product of California. Cali-fornia. The drink was the right color. But there didn't seem to be any orange in it. The best you could say for it was that probably its mother had been badly frightened by an orange. I made inquiry, and an expert told me some roadside venders not many, but some were peddling an essence compounded of chemical chemi-cal flavoring and artificial extracts because it kept better than the genuine gen-uine article. I thought America had reached tops in the gentle arts of substitution substitu-tion and adulteration when we began be-gan making pumpkin pies out of squash and maple syrup out of corn stalks and buckwheat flour out of a low grade of sawdust anyhow, it tastes like that and imported English Eng-lish sole out of the lowly flounder and scallops out of skate fins. But when, in a land where a strong man couldn't tote a dollar's worth of oranges on his back, there are parties par-ties selling synthetic imitations well, just let the east equal that mflgnificent stroke of merchandising merchandis-ing enterprise! Poor Little Rich Men. T ET us take time off to pity the - poor little rich man who owns a large but lonesome sea-going yacht. During the depression, the species grew rare there were money lords then who hardly had one yacht to rub against another but, with better bet-ter days, a fresh crop lines the coasts. No matter how rich, the owner feels he must use his floating palace. pal-ace. He may be content with a saucer of processed bran and two dyspepsia tablets, but no yacht crew yet ever could keep soul and body together on anything less than double dou-ble sirloins. So he goes cruising and gosh, how he does dread it! For every yachtsman who really gets joy out ot being afloat, there usually is another to whom the great heart of the nation should go out in sympathy. You almost expect ex-pect to find him putting ads in the paper for guests who can stand the strain; everything provided except the white duck pants. Problems on Wheels. A MERICA'S newest problem goes on wheels. One prophet says by 1933 there'll be a million trailers and three million people aboard them. Roger Babson raises the ante within twenty years, half the population living In trailers and all the roads clogged. So soon the trailer-face is recognizable. recog-nizable. It is worn by Mommcr, riding along behind, while Topper smiles pleasantly ns he drives tho car in solitary peace getting away from it all. Have you noticed how Many trailer widows there are already? al-ready? But ns yet nobody reckons with tho chief issue: think of tho i. creasing mortality figures when the incurable speed bug discovers that not only may he contiiuio to mow down victims with head-on assaults but will garner in many who escaped es-caped his frontal attack by sideswipes side-swipes of the hitched -on inonster that is swinging and lunging nt his rear like a drunken elephant on a rampage! To catch 'cm going and comlnt that should bo u motor maniac', drcum of earthly joy. IKV1N s. t oim. WNU Sorvke. |
