Central High School - Interlude Yearbook (South Bend, IN)

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8 THE INTERLUDE our own United States. It is broad but not vul- gar, impersonal and therefore kind. The con- versation between the slangy miner and an orthodox minister in Buck' Fanshattfs Funeral is especially appreciated by Americans who are fam- ous or infamous for their slang. The miner is so thoroughly educated in it as almost to have become a foreigner to English-speaking people: 'Well, you've got the bulge on me. Or may- be we've both got the bulge, somehow. You don't smoke me and I don't smoke you. You see one of the boys has passed in his checks, and we want to give him a good send-off, and so the thing I'm on now is to rout out somebody to jerk a little chin-music for us and waltz him through handsomef 'My friend, I seem to grow more and more bewildered. Your observations are wholly in- comprehensible to me. Cannot you simplify them some way? At first I thought perhaps I under- stood you, but now I grope. Would it not expe- dite manners if you restricted yourself to cate- gorical statements of fact unincumbered with ob- structing accumulations of metaphor and alle- ?Y J! Equally amusing is the charming conceit of the American Specimenu. Americans are not the most modest people in the world, but we be- lieve few have quite the sang froid of the Speci- men with his breezy self-complacency which is the adolescent's idea of the well bred ease of the man of the world.liiHe had all the look of an American who would be likely to begin his signature with an initial and spell his middle name outf' We are overpowered by the gracious condescension of his address: Very glad to make your acquaintance, 'm sureg very glad indeed, assure you. I've read all your little efforts and greatly admired them, and when I heard you were here, I ---.' And the irony of the closing remark: It is a great and solemn thing to have a grandfather. We have all met the woman who is afraid of lightning. O yes! The woman who wrings her hands and emits feeble little groans during the refreshing thunder-storm that we have been wish- ing for for days is, unhappily, only too familiar to us, but Mrs. McWilliams', leads not only the band of these women but her husband as well. On being told he ought to be ashamed for sleeping through a storm, Mr. McWilliams ex- claims: 'Wl1y, how can one be ashamed when he is asleep? It is unreasonableg- a man cau't be ashamed when he is asleep, Evangeline ?' 'You never try, Mortimer-you know very well you never try,' sobs Evangeline from the wardrobe whither she has taken refuge from thc lightning. And again, 'VVhat is that, Mortiine-r?' 'The cat.' 'The cat! Ch, destruction! Catch her, and shut her up in the washstand. Do be quick, love: cats are full of electricity. I just know my hair will turn white with this night's awful perils.' The awful perils turn out to be the booming of a cannon and the flashes of light emitted from it. So for once at least fears of a thunder-storm were groundless. The comical distress of the European guide over the seeming stolidness of the Americans is delightfully humorous : 'Ah, genteelmen, you come wis us! I show you beautiful, oh, magnificent bust Christopher Colombo! Splendid, grand, magnificent P' He brought us before the beautiful bust,-for it was beautiful,-and sprung back and struck an attitude. 'Ah, look, genteelmen l-beautiful, grand,- bust Christopher Colombo !-beautiful bust, beau- tiful pedestall' The doctor put up his eye-glass,-procured for such occasions. 'Ah,-what did you say this gentleman's name was P' 'Christopher Colombo! Ze great Christopher Colombol' 'Well, what did he do ?' 'Discover America l-discover America !-Oh, ze diable !' 'Discover America? No, that statement will hardly wash. We are just from America our- selves. Christopher Colombo !-pleasant name, -is-is he dead F' 'Oh, corpo di Baccho!-tree hundred yearl' 'What did he die of?' I do not know. I cannot tell.' Small-pox, think P' I do not know, genteelmen, I do not know what he die of.' 'Measles, likely P' 'Maybe-maybe. I do not know,-I think he die of something' 'Parents living ?' 'I m- posscebl e I' This is the true type of American humor as expressed in Mark Twain, that will make anyone laugh. And let us not smother our laughter or draw our faces to prodigious lengths. There is such a thing as taking life too seriously, and in this strenuous age of strikes and race struggles and panics we need to laugh much, for there's a true philosophy in cheering ha, ha, ha. INIYRTLE M. MCCORRISTKBN, '10. 4 A l :. -4: an-05414: yu i.. Zyl ,Q XQK ,Z remiss N TT' -W?i-fwsbie'

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THE INTERLUDE 7 ity. A rouge alive to the ludicrous is still con- vertible. If that sense is lost, his fellow-man can do little for him. Such is the state1ne11t of one of the wisest and sanest men that ever lived. llumor preserves health. gives rest to thought- ful. busy, energetic minds, prevents narrowness and prejudices, and is the guardian of the minor morals of society: that is, it limits eccentricity, impudence, selhshness, extravagance. lt is a weapon to whip into place those who are insen- sible to ordinary moral denunciation. A man who will laugh at a sermon will shrink from a laugh. I own I'm proud-I inust be proud--to sec Men not afraid of God afraid of ine, - was the boast of the little wasp of Twicken- ham . Many evils, such as duclling were only abolished when the world ridiculed them. As Thackeray has pointedly expressed it, the humor- ist is a week-day preacher . 'ZX great tragic poet ought also to be a great comic poetfl once said Socrates, and Arch-deacon llare has said of the great Shakespeare in whom these qualities were united- No heart would have been strong enough to hold the woe of l.ear and Othello, ex- cept that which had the unquenchable elasticity of lialstaff and the .llid-szllnmef' Niglifs Dream . lflumor quickens friendship. How often has a laugh united a roomful of strangers who but for the timely jest might have been strangers to the end of the chapter. And error itself is best con- fronted with a smiling face and gentle ridicule, rather than glum looks and dreary sermons. llut the expression that you can never get too much of a good thing does not hold true in this case. l'erverted humor is a bad thing. A char- acter all hunior is like a glass of wine all froth. llunior should have a foundation of good sense and substantial thought or it is injurious to its possessor and wearisome to his friends. Humor is perverted when it is used to give pain. Ihat humor which makes fun of the misfortunes of others is not really humor. Irreverence, a mock- ing of the deep and tragic things of life, an ap- plication of liiblical passages to trivial or ludicr- ous events is always a misuse of humor. as is also a combination of the grave and the ridiculous, the mean and the exalted, or a rapid descent from the sublime and beautiful to the false and de- grading. The first American humorist was llenjamin Franklin, who even to this day has not been sur- passed in either the quality or quantity of his humor. His humor is abundant and never fail- ing, as fresh and enjoyable in the twentieth cen- tury as it was in the eighteenth. His humor was homely, keen, practical. llis almanac abounds with sparkling fun: If you'd lose a troublesome visitor, lend him money. Knaves a11d nettles are aking stroke 'em even kindly, yet they'll sting. The good or ill hap of a good or ill life, is the good or ill choice of a good or ill wife. It is ill-manners to silence a fool, and cruelty to let him go on. To bear other peoples aftlictions every one has enough to spare. No workman without tools. Nor lawyer without fools Can live by their rules. Love your neighbor, yet don't pull down the hedge. Many a man's own tongue gives evidence against his understanding. If jack's in love, he's no judge of -Iill's beauty. i His autobiography has many passages of ex- quisite humor: where he tells of Kermer, a printer, a great glutton, who invited two friends and Franklin to dine with him, and ordered a roast pig: But, it being brought too soon upon the table, he could not resist the temptation and ate the whole before we came. XVhen American Minister to Paris, .Franklin was greatly pressed by F renehmen whom he did not know for recommendations to military .com- missions. So he prepared an introductory 'let- ter that might serve for all: . Sir: The bearer of this, who is going to .-Xmerica, presses me to give him alletter of rec- ommendation, though I know nothing of him, not even his name, This may seem extraordi- nary, but I assure you it is not uncommon here. Sometimes, indeed, one unknown person brings another equally unknown to recommend himg and sometimes they reconnnend one another. As to this gentleman, I must refer you to himself for his character and merits, with which he is certainly better acquainted than I can possibly be. I recommend him, however, to thosecivili- ties which every stranger, etc. Wliile his reply to his daughter who had SCl1t for some Paris goods, among them lace and feathers, must have been very disappointing for her, it is full of a quaint, delicious humor for us. He says: I send all the articles you desire that are use- ful and necessary and omit the rest: for as you say you should have great pride in wearing any- thing I send, and showing it as your fatl1er's taste, I must avoid giving you an opportunity of doing that with either lace or feathers. If you wear your cambric ruffles as I do and take care not to mend the holes, they will come in time to be laceg and feathers, my dear girl, may be had in America from every cock's tail. This is humor without sting, kindly, delightful fun which fills ns with a pleasurable glow with- out provoking uproarious laughter. The laugh- ter holding both its sides style of humor belongs to Mark Twain more than to any other humorist. Every word-ripples and erackles with fun. His humor is the true American brand that can be appreciated nowhere in the world so well as in

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THE INTERLUDE 9 CONTINUATION OF SENATOR GORDON'S SPEECH lThis manuscript is an imagined continuation of Senator Gordon's speech-original with the exception of thc indented paragraphj .X few weeks ago I listened to an old gray- haired Senator delivering his first and last speech before the United States Senate. He had been chosen to fill a vacancy caused by a deadlock in the senatorial election in his home state. The- Senate chamber had been a scene of confusion. Men representing the private in- terests of the country had been pitted against true statesmen in the battle over a national measure. There were Senators who were sac- rificing their honor and their reputation to ob- tain the cherished legislation. There were other Senators who loved their country and their people, and were fighting for a righteous cause. The battle had waged hot and heavy and during a lull in the fight the great, slender six- foot man rose and addressed the chair: Mr. President, I have been informed that the deadlock in the senatorial election in my honle state has been broken, and that I must soon allow my successor to take my place in this body. As I am about to retire from the Senate, I wish to express my feelings, my pro- found convictions, gained from my brief ex- periencc here. I come to you to talk of friend- ship and of love for one another. My religion is the eleventh commandment of Christ, when he said, 'A new commandment I give unto vou, that ye love one another'. That is what I should like to bring about here. That is my object in standing here to-day to talk to you as I am going to. I want to implant in you, just as it is in my heart. a growing love for the country in which I live and the people I live with. I :un from the South, but I live with you all. You are not divided from me by Mason and Dixon's line. or any other lines. I want to wipe out all lines. I want to see Mason and Dixou's line obliterated from the map of the United States and in its place the words, 'Our country'. These words uttered by the Senator touched a sympathetic chord in the hearts of those present and evoked a responsive thrill, a senti- ment such as had not existed since the days of the Civil XVar. Men began to note with ex- treme interest the existing situation. Then the Senator continued: VVhen the first white man set foot on American soil, he was not restricted by any lines or boundaries other than those of nature. The country from the Arctic to the Gulf and from the Atlantic to the Pacific was solidly one and was not div- ided by any lines of distinction or separation. Since then matters have changed wonderful- ly. Generation after generation has seen prob- lems loom up before it anfl others have seen them solved. I have a series of pictures in mind. The first is a scene of the early settlers of this country as they felled the trees, hewed the rough logs, and builded for themselves homes there within the sound of the Atlantic surf. In the second I see their sons and daugh- ters with their axes on their shoulders toiling their way across the Appalachians into the broad Mississippi vallev. The third and final presents a long train of emigrant wagons winding slowly downward from the mountains into the beautiful valley of California. It is a splendid scene not alone mingled with joy and sadness as, pausing for a moment, those sturdy pioneers behold that fruitful valley which lies before them, and the golden sun as it sinks into the depths of the Pacific. Each of these generations had its problems, and so has the present one, Today We are facing a problem that is as old as the human race. a problem with which the first of the human species battled, and one that has ever since confronted man. And that is the prob- lem of integrity, the struggle of human right against corporate privilege. If every American could realize that integ- rity is an essential factor in governing, this nation could be handed down to posterity with the confidence that it would remain a world power for generations to come. And what a splendid thing that would be to have every man take a conscientious share in the preservation of our father-land! In this strenuous and progressive age we are likely to think too much of the remun- erative ends of life and sacrifice those splendid qualities which are attributes of man alone. I cannot but associate with integrity the names and characters of some of the nation's eminent men. And first among these I should name the father of our country, George W'ash- ington. Ifis character was a composite of truth, courage, and virtue-of honor which throughout his life he never compromised. Then later in history we find Abraham Lin- coln, who stood before the nation at the crisis with beliefs supported by strong moral convic- tions. Passing on to the present age, which is of perhaps more interest, I point with enthusiasm to the name of Theodore Roosevelt, a man who stands before the world and allows only his conscience to dictate his actions. These are examples of men who have stood for the right. I could name many more, but these are foremost. Now, Senators, I wish to press upon you the need of conscientiousness in this honored place. Think of the millions of homes and of