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Show George Ade Likes The Present George Ade, famous playwright, play-wright, whose "Fables in Slang," were "must" reading some years ago, recently observied his seventy-seventh birthday and took time out for a few remarks. "You can have the good old days," he declared. "I'm perfectly perfect-ly content to be living in the present, even with rationing and the war." The humorist speaks of the marvels wrouht by science during dur-ing the past few decades, attesting attest-ing "I was born the year after the Civil War ended. That makes me practicallypre-historic so I ought to know." He also points out that people today are more tolerant and better bet-ter sports than they used to be. "We never thought of cheering the opposition," he explained. "We used to throw rocks at them." He points out that people were pretty primitive in his early days, citing the fact that he used to wear a bag of asafoetida around his neck to keep well and that babies chewed bacon rind when they were teething. "Doctor's prescriptions were limited to calomel, cal-omel, quinine and morphine," and grown men carried "buckeyes" "buck-eyes" in their pockets to ward off rheumatism. Mr Ade's observations ought to help some Americans to conclude con-clude that the nation and its people peo-ple are making progress. He finds our "young soldiers inspiring," and, judging from his interview, he has no idea that the human race is going to the dogs. |